American Sherlock

called the toughest year.



The Lamsons' cottage on Salvatierra Street, with its Spanish-style red-tiled roof and stucco walls adorned with ivy, was modest compared to the other lavish homes in the neighborhood. The house was just a ten-minute stroll from former president Herbert Hoover's impressive three-tiered residence. His wife, First Lady Lou Henry, had an interest in architecture; in 1919, she'd helped to design the five-thousand-square-foot home in the newly popular International style of European estates. In the 1920s, she had overseen the construction of seven single-story cottages on the Row for younger faculty, with prices ranging from about $4,000 to $7,000, and the Lamsons had purchased one.



President Hoover had recently retreated to his sprawling California estate after being soundly defeated in the last election by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. Many Americans blamed Hoover for the Great Depression, the catastrophic economic collapse triggered by the stock market crash just seven months after the Republican took office in 1929. By 1933, shantytowns called "Hoovervilles" increasingly dotted America. Bread lines and soup kitchens served millions of impoverished people as Hoover returned to Palo Alto with a tainted legacy. While the former president's two-acre property might have seemed ostentatious, the Lamsons' cottage was cozy, the perfect size for a small family. David proudly, meticulously groomed his garden almost every weekend.



In 1933, many people in Palo Alto were certainly more fortunate than the rest of the country. The United States had been struggling to survive a world economic crisis since 1929. The Great Depression had devastated so many families-fifteen million Americans were unemployed at the time, about 25 percent of the country. But most people in Palo Alto seemed to be thriving, or at least maintaining.



Professors and scholars at Stanford University continued to teach classes and conduct research. Endowments suffered, but athl

forensic science the gritty work of studying bloodstains, identifying liars, and gathering faint traces of fingerprints in the sometimes murky pursuit of justice. Equally entertaining and erudite, this is a work so cleverly conceived and structured, it reads like the best of Conan Doyle himself. Karen Abbott, author of The Ghosts of Eden Park 

At last a book about the pioneering scientist, Edward Oscar Heinrich, whose early 20th century work helped launch modern criminal investigation. Part suspenseful detective story, part compelling character study, American Sherlock does full justice to Heinrich's starts, stumbles, and his startling brilliance. Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York 
 
Each of the cases that Dawson so skillfully recreates is more engaging than the next, all hurtling towards the final, unforgettable murder that challenges us with the question that haunts the entire book: can guilt or innocence really dangle on a scientific measurement? This is the best kind of true crime: the story of a good person who tries their best as a real, fallible human being against an unrelenting tide of evil. Brad Ricca, author of Mrs. Sherlock Holmes

A meticulously researched, thoroughly fascinating account of the Great Detective who ought to be a household name, but isn t I was completely immersed in American Sherlock, from start to finish. Lyndsay Faye, author of Gods of Gotham and Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson
 
Considering America s long obsession with forensics and criminal investigation, it is amazing that most of us don t know who Oscar Heinrich was. Reading Kate Dawson s engaging new book, I had the sense of being taken on a journey of discovery through the history of forensic science. The obsessive, brilliant Heinrich is the perfect character for the job! S.C. Gwynne, author of Rebel Yell and Empire of the Summer Moon

A fascinating work of historical resurrection. By deftly recounting a series of murder cases from the 1920s and 1930s, Kate Dawson constructs a complex and engrossing portrait of a brilliant investigator and illuminates the origins of modern forensic science. Karen Olsson, author of The Weil Conjectures: On Math and the Pursuit of the Unknown
 
Kate Winkler Dawson has researched both her subject and his cases so meticulously that her reconstructions and descriptions made me feel part of the action rather than just a reader and bystander. She has brought to life Edward Oscar Heinrich's character, determination, and skill so vividly that one is left bemused that this man is so little known to most of us. Patricia Wiltshire, author of The Nature of Life and Death: Tales of a Forensic Ecologist 

American Sherlock will take you on a journey to the origins of crime scene investigation by exploring the obsessive, troubled, brilliant mind of Oscar Heinrich, the nation s first true medical detective, an accomplished polymath who understood, far ahead of his time, that applied forensic science was the key to unlocking criminal mysteries. Kate Dawson offers a riveting, real, and sometimes-unsettling account of Heinrich s life and legacy in this thoroughly-researched and unblinking biography that will at times make you shake your head at the ways that true crime is stranger than fiction. Judy Melinek and T.J. Mitchell, author of Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner

DNA evidence, CSI franchises: How did forensic science become sexy as well as part of our culture? In American Sherlock, Kate Winkler Dawson offers up a riveting biography of Edward Oscar Heinrich who helped put the science into old fashion detective work. His cases, his methods, his lasting contributions to crime busting are all here. This is an insightful book about the science of insight. Joe Drape, author of American Pharaoh