Fingerprints: The Origins of Crime Detection and the Murder Case that Launched Forensic Science - Softcover

Beavan, Colin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786885289 ISBN 13: 9780786885282

Publisher: Hyperion, 2002

Synopsis

Now available in paperback -- the history of fingerprinting, as "fascinating, informative and as gripping as a great crime novel" --Simon Singh, author of Fermat's Enigma and The Code Book.

It is almost impossible to imagine that prior to the 20th century, there was no reliable way to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent. All that changed in Britain in 1905, when the bloody bodies of an elderly couple were discovered in their shop -- and a solitary fingerprint became the only piece of evidence . . .

About this title

About the Author

Colin Beavan writes for numerous magazines, including Esquire, Atlantic Monthly, Men's Health, and Men's Journal. He lives in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly

Beavan's lively debut explores developments in criminal forensics that culminated in the first prosecution based on fingerprint evidence, in London in 1905. He opens his narrative with the wanton double murder of the elderly Farrows and the crude initial investigation. Beavan, a writer for Esquire and other magazines, examines at length the slow scientific inroads into 19th-century law enforcement. Following the sharp decline in hanging offenses, European societies were swept by hysteria regarding multi-aliased career criminals. Officials reluctantly explored ways of confirming identities of repeat offenders, notably Alphonse Bertillon's anthropometric system, which posited that "criminal" body types could be identified by minute bodily measurements. Several British bureaucrats had experimented with inked fingerprints for identification, but Henry Faulds, an impoverished Scottish medical missionary in Japan, definitively claimed that fingerprints' particular qualities were ideal for criminal prosecution. Faulds's early publications spawned fingerprint science; unfortunately, his thunder was stolen by the ambitious, better-positioned Francis Galton (Darwin's cousin), whom Beavan portrays as an effete plagiarist. Police in South America and India ventured into this terra incognita, but Scotland Yard fiercely resisted. Only tragic anthropometric and eyewitness misidentifications led grudging officials to use the Farrows trial as a test case. The embittered Faulds served as a defense witness, contending that single-digit identification, the basis for this ultimately successful prosecution, was unreliable. This entertaining and balanced work centers less on academic precepts than does Simon Cole's Suspect Identities (see review below). Beavan's effortless prose, firm grasp of his subject and vividly drawn characters will delight history buffs and armchair criminologists. Photos and illus. (May)Forecast: This is a charmer that, with good reviews and effective promotion, could catch on outside the true-crime crowd. There will also be online promotion at the Web site www.fingerprintbook.com.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0786885289
• ISBN 13: 9780786885282
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256