American Sherlock by Kate Winkler Dawson

American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI (2020) by Kate Winkler Dawson recounts the life and career of Edward Oscar Heinrich (1881-1953), one of the founding fathers of forensic science in the United States.

Forced to become the family breadwinner at age sixteen after his father’s suicide, Heinrich worked as a pharmacist and a chemical engineer before opening America’s first private crime lab in 1910 and helping develop America’s first college program for police officers in 1916. During his career, he solved around two thousand cases. This book goes over a selection of these cases in detail, focusing on the (often brand-new) forensic techniques that Heinrich used to solve them, such as blood spatter analysis, fingerprinting, and handwriting analysis. Cases profiled include a train robbery, the kidnapping and murder of a Catholic priest, and the murder trial of silent film star Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle.

A mix of true crime, biography, science, and history, this book reads like a novel. It strives to present a complete picture of Heinrich, showing not only his successes but also his many flaws and mistakes.

If you're interested in reading about early forensic scientists, I also highly recommend The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York (2010) by Deborah Blum and 18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics (2020) by Bruce Goldfarb.