Book review: American Sherlock Murder, forensics, and the birth of crime scene investigation by Kate Winkler Dawson

Hello you,

Another day, another book review ! I will get back to other topics in the coming weeks. For example I want to talk about my interest (obsession?) in Sherlock Holmes along with a post about an Irish Sketch comedy group.


Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, todays review will be on American Sherlock: Murder, forensics, and the birth of crime scene investigation by Kate Winkler Dawson. Huge thanks to Icon Books and to Netgalley as always for letting me review this. I've been a huge fan of the Holmes books since I was roughly 11 years old. (More about that in a latter post) so naturally when I saw this title I knew I had to request to read it. I am very glad I did. While being a huge Holmes fan I must admit I had never heard of  Edward Oscar Heinrich, known as the ‘American Sherlock Holmes’, so I was very interested to know more. The book was fascinating. Part true crime, part history lesson, and part biography,  the writer presents us with years of research in a way that is very interesting to read. Her narrative style is very engaging and I found myself eagerly wanting to know more and read the book fairly quickly. Each chapter begins with a Holmes quote and tends to focus on an individual case. Some of the cases are fairly well known (the Fatty Arbuckle trial for example) while others are less familiar. If I'm brutally honest it was reading the cases that Heinrich was involved with that really interested me above the rest of the books subject, I had no great interest in reading about the feuds mentioned. Incidentally there are a few other books on the market that are centred around someone being termed an 'American Sherlock'...obviously this is a catchy title designed to grab readers who enjoy Holmes stories...in my case, at least, it worked !


In summary, I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in true crime or detective fiction/tv programmes. It is a very engrossing read about a man who helped shape the way criminal investigations are handled as one of America's earlier criminologist. But I would have liked more cases and less biographical details. 

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