I could not get into this book, ultimately it was not form me and I could not finish it. It may be one for other readers

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

This was suppose to be a fascinating book to read, detailing the life and career achievements of Edward Oscar Heinrich, nicknamed American Sherlock.

It was written as a book that detailed the pioneering procedures of American Forensics Science and how skilled a forensic investigator Edward Oscar Heinrich was. His evidence helped solve 100s of cases.

At the end of the book, I don't know we knew much more about Heinrich, apart from his issue with money, which was repeated repetitively. I would have been more interested to hear his wife's voice in the book, but she barely got a mention.

I ended up confused about which genre the story was marketed towards. It didn't sit comfortably in fiction, non-fiction or even a biography. The format of the ARC wasn't easy to read, and the facts given were very confusing.

As a reference book, the mix of storytelling and fact-filling should have been an exciting twist to telling his life story. Unfortunately, sometimes there was too much detail in a muddled timeline, occasionally leaving cliffhangers that were resolved in much later chapters.

I have great admiration for the talent it takes to write a book like this, but I will admit that I am not a fan of her writing style.

While I was determined to complete reading this ARC, it was a hard push to reach the end, approximately 18 months. I will admit I am looking forward to researching a few of the cases spoken about in this book.

Rating {2.0 / 5.0}

I would like to thank G.P. Putnam's Sons, an imprint of #PenguinRandomHouse and #NetGalley, for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book is due for release on May 13, 2021.

If you're a fan of Sherlock Holmes, you'll love American Sherlock. This book tells the story of William Pinkerton, the son of the famous detective, and his work in solving some of the most famous cases in American history.
This book is well-written and well-researched, and it provides a fascinating look at American history.

I'm a huge true crime fan, so Edward Oscar Heinrich is a familiar name to me, and is in reality, one of the first 'real life' Sherlocks. He invited and created so much of what we know as the basics of forensic investigation. The book was really well researched, supported by lots of references and really, very enlightening.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in return for an honest review.

American Sherlock by Kate Winkler Dawson is about Edward Oscar Heinrich, who was one for the first forensic scientists, and so is one of the first to go before a jury to explain how something happened.  This is a really interesting book about how things like blood splatter started to be used, and then how it was shown to a jury.

This is a non fiction book, and explores Heinrich's life, his family, and his work.  We learn about crimes that happened, and then how Heinrich solved them.  It is very evocative, and well written, and I enjoyed learning more about this time in forensics.

 American Sherlock  was published on 13th May 2021 and is available from  Amazon ,  Waterstones  and  Bookshop.org .

You can follow Kate Winkler Dawson on  Twitter ,  Instagram  and her  website .

Kate Winkler Dawson also has 2 podcasts -  Tenfold More Wicked  which looks into true crime stories, and  Wicked Words , which interviews journalists and writers about their favourite true crime stories.  

I was given this book in exchange of an unbiased review, and so my thanks to NetGalley and to  Icon Books .

American Sherlock tells the true story of Edward Oscar Heinrich, a forensic scientist from the late 1800's to the early 1900's. He invented many forensic tools that police use in contemporary society. He worked on some very famous cases, with a meticulous eye for detail and order.

I have a huge passion for true crime and forensics, with the hope of one day becoming a Forensic Psychologist. I found myself engrossed in the book, not wanting to put it down. I learnt so much that I didn't know before, for example, I had never heard of Edward Oscar Heinrich, despite the huge role he has played in forensic history. I found myself devouring the cases he worked on, although sometimes this seemed to drag a little.

This book isn't going to be for everyone, it was a little dry and technical in places. I also found some of the repetition about his personal life a bit dull. The cases he worked on were fascinating, but his money troubles were not, hence the loss of one star for me. That being said, I loved the inclusion of real historic photos, it added even more depth to the book and made the stories come to life.

I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in true crime, especially if you are interested in forensic science. I want to thank Netgalley, Icon Books and Kate Winkler Dawson for allowing me to read this book and give my personal thoughts.

I really enjoyed this book. As a big fan of both Sherlock Holmes and procedural crime investigation I knew I had to read this straight from when I saw the blurb.
Once I'd started I sped through it. Although it is all true I honestly think you could be mistaken for thinking it is fictional from the way it is written and I really enjoyed that. I definitely think the author took some inspiration from Conan-Doyle himself, but even if not it was very cleverly written. I don't think there has ever been a non-fiction which has had me on the edge of my seat like this one did and that is truly commendable. I audibly gasped more than once when reading this and was always eager to share the stories with family and friends.
I loved the structure, every chapter focuses on a different story, some stories taking two chapters. I thought this was a big contributer to how hooked and eager to continue I was as it meant even if there was a part I wasn't finding as interesting I knew that soon enough we would be onto something else (though I assure you, I enjoyed every chapter). Introducing the story that completes the book first was a very clever choice because it stayed in the back of my mind throughout and I knew soon enough I would know what happened in that story and that was a great motivator.
The amount of detail included is astonishing but I must clarify that it was never info-dumpy, never dry and I enjoyed the entirety of this book.
I've always struggled with short stories as I never feel I get enough from them, but if short stories were written the way these chapters are then short stories would be making a regular appearance on my shelves; the chapters were full of descriptions, logically followed a series of events giving you hints and clues along the way and telling you about what the investigators were thinking and doing and fully explaining why. There was also much variation in the jobs that were being carried out; there was a mix of investigative work as well as some courtroom scenes and some smaller bits that tell you more about the man himself. Having finished this book I feel like I do know a fair bit about Heinrich, but the actual crime solving never took a back seat so I learned about him through his work which I think is more interesting and a significant contributer to my motivation to continue.
I will say, although this never put me off and I still read it fairly quickly, that this is quite dense. You do have to focus and it is definitely a slower read, but gripping nonetheless.
I have already purchased this book for my dad and will probably but it again in the future as it was truly an excellent read.

This true crime book is about a fascinating man, who surprisingly is little known and has never been the subject of a book before, despite his world-renowned reputation and his fame in the media of the time. In the early twentieth century, Oscar Heinrich was a trailblazer in forensic science, and was instrumental in solving over 2000 cases in his lifetime, pioneering many of the techniques still in use today. These included comparison of hair and fibres, use of dual photomicroscopy for comparing bullets, blood spatter analysis, chemical comparison and identification of soil and sand samples and the use of insect larva in corpses to determine time of death. Additionally, his use of deductive reasoning and uncanny ability to profile criminals involved in his cases resulted in him being nicknamed ‘the American Sherlock.’

When the author, Kate Winkler Dawson, became interested in writing a book about Heinrich, she discovered that all his case files had been bequeathed to the University of California at Berkeley, where he taught forensic Science for thirty years, but had been left catalogued for over fifty years due to budget constraints. Winkler was able to persuade the University archivist to undertake the mammoth job of cataloguing the thousands of pieces of information in the collection and to open the collection to research. Heinrich kept everything from all his cases and his personal life – notes, letters, photographs, newspaper articles, even bullets and other evidence providing a rich treasure trove for a researcher.

The book focuses on eight of Heinrich’s more famous cases, not all of them successful, demonstrating his use of deduction and development of forensic science methods. Although, I felt the book could have been less choppy and more cohesively written, it’s a fascinating look at the evolving use of forensic science and criminology in some interesting cases, as well as the American justice system at the time and the difficulty of getting juries to accept and trust new types of evidence.

Although Heinrich had his detractors and competitors, self-styled experts who would offer incorrect science in court or try to ridicule his techniques, he also had his supporters. August Vollmer was a Berkley police chief and later a leading figure in the development of criminal justice who was a life-long supporter and advisor who went on to teach Criminology at UC Berkley. Heinrich’s best friend and confidant John Boynton Kaiser, a librarian and researcher kept up a life-long correspondence with Heinrich, discussing his cases as well as his personal life, his long hours of obsessive work in his laboratory and his long-term problem with debt and earning enough to support his family. More importantly he sent Heinrich books on criminology and forensic methods that he thought would interest him.

With so much material still in Heinrich’s archives, I suspect this book has only skimmed the surface and there may be more than enough for further books on this important pioneer of forensic science in criminal investigation.

2/10 stars

A very bad book about a fascinating subject.

The style of this book lies somewhere between a tabloid and a high school paper. Facts are buried under a mound of supposition and factoids given by the author, who seems to spend way more time on hypothetical emotional states of Oscar Heinrich and various criminals than on the actual forensics. The text is peppered with quotes from Heinrich's private correspondence and newspapers, which in itself would be laudable and highly interesting, if not for the author's penchant of explaining every single bit of data she managed to acquire to death (the data or the reader's, you choose). There are numerous stylistic mistakes, the prose is generally clunky, and cases of severe stylistic dissonance within a single paragraph are not uncommon. Also, the predilection of the author to create as many cliffhangers as possible - at the end of the chapters, within the chapters, you name it - results in a chaotic structure that takes the opportunity for a conclusion completely out. It's a baffling, garbled mess hiding an interesting book somewhere deep inside.

I can see that the author had spent a lot of time and effort on research, and that's commendable. But as a researcher I can tell you that the key part of any research is attaining the control over your material and preparing the results. The raison d'être of the research-based books is the analysis and synthesis of the research data. The readers don't want to read through all the data the researcher has found and used in their book - what they want to read is the analysis of the data, and the researcher's conclusions (data-based, I feel I must add, as in the case of this book this tiny but important detail was mostly ignored and whatever conclusions there were were based predominantly on the author's personal bias - many reviewers pointed out the endless hang-up on money and personal insecurity; both themes appear in every chapter, discussed with relish but no resolution).

There are interesting passages in this book - when the author focuses on how painstakingly meticulous and systematic Heinrich was both in his professional and personal life, how he was developing his methods, and how ingeniously he was able to apply them to cases that confounded others. But these parts are few and far between, separated by inexpertly written, mind-numbing paragraphs devoted solely to the minutiae of life in the US in 1920s and 1930s, and author's lengthy suppositions on the emotional and mental states of the various historical figures appearing in the book.

Not recommended.

I have received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks.

A fascinating read about the history of forensics and how searching murder scenes has evolved over time. Informative and engaging at all times.

I love reading about true crime. The motives, the forensics, the police work. So I was so looking forward to reading this one.
Honestly, I have no clue what I read. It was confused waffle. No cohesion there at all.
The actual substance of Heinrich's life and forensic work was on the whole really interesting, but the flow and execution of the book felt like it was completely random, and written as if it was typing out the author's notes as she had researched it.

I enjoyed this book, but found it uneven in the writing. The descriptions of the background to the cases and the forensics involved was excellent. However, interspersing these cases with episodes from the man's life didn't work.. I lost complete track of where I was with his life, and how it related to the cases. Also, the life story seems to be repetitive as if I were reading the same paragraph over and over again.
I didn't like the title either, feeling it oversold the book.
Altogether, a book which promised more than it delivered....

American Sherlock is about Edward Oscar Heinrich, murder, forensics, and the birth of crime scene investigation. Taking place over the first half of the 1900s, the story of Heinrich's life is intertwined with the murder cases that he worked on and the scientific techniques that he pioneered. Heinrich was referred to by the press at the time as the 'American Sherlock Holmes', and the parallels are clearly there. As a big Sherlock Holmes fan, I liked the inclusion of relevant quotes from the Holmes novels at the beginnings of each chapter.

This is the first time that anyone has gone through the entire archive of Heinrich's papers, both forensic related and personal. I loved reading about how he kept pretty much everything, meaning that there was actually too much for archivists to deal with! All of these papers, from notes on criminal cases and experiments to personal correspondances to details of his finances, allow for a very detailed picture of Heinrich as a person to be built up. This is clearly a very well researched book, and a very interesting read.

The cases detailed in the book are interesting in their own right, and the methods used by the man solving them are fascinating. I loved reading about techniques that I've seen in modern CSI shows, liked using bugs to determine time of death, or very early profiling. There are plenty of gruesome details for true crime fans.

The book is very readable, with a compelling writing style, and well worth picking up if you have any interest in forensics and true crime.

Calling all true crime lovers! This is an enthralling biography of criminologist Edward Oscar Heinrich and how he pioneered forensic science.

Nicknamed America’s Sherlock Holmes, Heinrich was one of America’s first (and probably greatest) forensic scientists, who made countless contributions to forensic science with many of his techniques still studied today. Heinrich’s uncanny ability to find clues, work with evidence and deduce answers allowed him to help solve over 2000 cases, many I had never heard of before - such as the Father Heslin case in California, and the Siskiyou Train Robbery.

I found Dawson’s writing style engaging and compelling. The chapters were laid out in an intriguing way, with the magnifying glass hovering over Heinrich’s personal life, then suddenly over a real case he worked on, to suddenly an in depth and detailed history lesson. I felt like I needed to keep my wits about me, and certainly wasn’t a book to lounge back and read before going to sleep. But I liked this style, and it felt very reminiscent of the detective and forensic nature of the topic Dawson was writing about.

The real life cases were covered in great detail, which will satisfy any true crime enthusiast. Incredibly well researched with some brilliant photos included of Heinrich and the cases he worked on. The quotes from Arthur Conan Doyle at the beginning of each chapter were a great touch, giving insight on what the chapter would focus on.

Some may wish more cases and less biography, but I thought it struck a perfect balance. Heinrich was thoroughly deserving of his “Holmes” reference. Recommended to all lovers of true crime, and anyone who appreciates a detailed and engaging story.

There are some very interesting parts of this book. How Edward Oscar Heinrich has helped to shape criminal investigations today with some new forensic tools is admirable. You can tell a lot of research went into the making of this book. I liked the writing in the beginning as it was fast paced but it started to get repetitive which made me lose interest.

Thank you to Icon Books for this advanced copy.

Biography of Edward Oscar Heinrich's role as one of the pioneer of forensic science in the US. In the 1920s and 1930s, Heinrich solved thousands of cases with his new or improved techniques for investigative processes such as blood-spatter analysis, fingerprint evidence, forensic entomology, and handwriting analysis, yet few people have heard of him.

This was an absolutely engrossing read, I've always been intrigued by forensic science and the cases and techniques talked about here are fascinating. Although there was information about Heinrich's personal life, the cases took centre stage, and there were many here I had never heard of. I thought it was extremely well-researched and written in an engaging way which keeps the readers' attention. Towards the end, there was also the consideration of the limits of forensic science and current issues as since CSI many people seem to believe that forensics are infallible. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the origin of modern science's role in solving crime.

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher, Icon Books, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

The structure of the chapters is somewhat confusing, making this a difficult read, albeit an interesting subject. The chapters seem to jump around in their details, one minute with a suspect in a cell, the next sentence we’re back at the crime scene, weeks later. A more linear structure would perhaps have worked better.

American Sherlock is a great introduction to a historical figure I'd never heard of before - pioneering forensic scientist Oscar Henrich. He brought many of the elements we now feel familiar with from crime stories - handwriting analysis, blood spatter analysis, ballistics and finger-printing - to the courtrooms of the United States for the first time in the 1930s. The author's engaging non-fiction book takes us through Oscar's career by looking at a number of his most famous cases and most infamous appearances as star expert in the witness box. Whilst I didn't feel like the case structure always leant itself well to our understanding of Oscar's life, I enjoyed the narrative and found the story of the birth of modern forensic analysis very interesting. This book is a great read for those interested in true crime, science and history.

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, 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.