Oscar Heinrich was an American Sherlock Holmes. Though he believed Holmes used intuition rather than science to solve his cases. Heinrich opened the first private crime lab in the US. He invented blood-splatter analysis and ballistics while proving that a fingerprint could be relied on as evidence.
American Sherlock is a biography of an extraordinary man who bootstrapped his way to becoming the father of forensic science. However, I loved the cases he solved best. Unfortunately, they were sparse in this volume. If there were more case studies, this would have been a four-star read. As it is, it is a 3 star read for me.
Thanks to G.P. Putnam’s Sons and Edelweiss+ for a copy in exchange for my honest review.