An entertaining, absorbing combination of biography and true crime.
A biography of a little-known but influential forensic scientist told through the crimes that he helped solve.
Documentary producer Dawson (Journalism/Univ. of Texas; Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City, 2017) tells the story of detective and chemist Oscar Heinrich (1881-1953), “the most famous criminalist you’ve likely never heard of,” the man who helped found modern forensic science through his pioneering work solving infamous cases. Though Heinrich had little use for the media, which he viewed as a tool, Dawson’s chapters all have fun Sherlock Holmes–esque titles, including “The Case of the Baker’s Handwriting,” “The Case of the Star’s Fingerprints,” and “The Case of the Calculating Chemist.” In each, the author tells vivid details of a wide variety of infamous crimes—e.g., those alleged of Fatty Arbuckle—not revealing all the secrets or indulging in conspiracy theories but still developing suspense and, most importantly, reporting the scene clearly with both the history accepted at the time and revisionist reflection. While many true-crime books suffer from stale prose, Dawson’s writing is remarkable in that it never uses the crutch of false suspense but also doesn’t skimp on valuable details. The author explains Heinrich’s deductive reasoning matter-of-factly, succinctly, and with the proper respectful attention to the victims while acknowledging the complex hubris of such an adept detective. When he heard of his nickname, the “American Sherlock,” Heinrich is reported as saying, “Not Sherlock Holmes….Holmes acted on hunches. And hunches play no part in my crime laboratory.” Readers see the development of each crime through victim and suspect profiles that read as objectively as Heinrich’s methods. We come to respect him, his scientific brain, and his integrity despite his mistakes. How do detectives understand what pieces relate to one another? Heinrich taught them how.
An entertaining, absorbing combination of biography and true crime.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-53955-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Occasionally unfocused, but redeems itself by putting a vivid, human face on an unimaginable nightmare.
A ground-level illustration of how the plague ravaged Europe.
For his tenth book, science writer Kelly (Three on the Edge, 1999, etc.) delivers a cultural history of the Black Death based on accounts left by those who witnessed the greatest natural disaster in human history. Spawned somewhere on the steppes of Central Asia, the plague arrived in Europe in 1347, when a Genoese ship carried it to Sicily from a trading post on the Black Sea. Over the next four years, at a time when, as the author notes, “nothing moved faster than the fastest horse,” the disease spread through the entire continent. Eventually, it claimed 25 million lives, one third of the European population. A thermonuclear war would be an equivalent disaster by today's standards, Kelly avers. Much of the narrative depends on the reminiscences of monks, doctors, and other literate people who buried corpses or cared for the sick. As a result, the author has plenty of anecdotes. Common scenes include dogs and children running naked, dirty, and wild through the streets of an empty village, their masters and parents dead; Jews burnt at the stake, scapegoats in a paranoid Christian world; and physicians at the University of Paris consulting the stars to divine cures. These tales give the author opportunities to show Europeans—filthy, malnourished, living in densely packed cities—as easy targets for rats and their plague-bearing fleas. They also allow him to ramble. Kelly has a tendency to lose the trail of the disease in favor of tangents about this or that king, pope, or battle. He returns to his topic only when he shifts to a different country or city in a new chapter, giving the book a haphazard feel. Remarkably, the story ends on a hopeful note. After so many perished, Europe was forced to develop new forms of technology to make up for the labor shortage, laying the groundwork for the modern era.
Occasionally unfocused, but redeems itself by putting a vivid, human face on an unimaginable nightmare.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000692-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2005
A feast for students of ancient history and budding historians of any period.
A delightful new translation of what is widely considered the first work of history and nonfiction.
Herodotus has a wonderful, gossipy style that makes reading these histories more fun than studying the rise of the Persian Empire and its clash with Greece—however, that’s exactly what readers will do in this engaging history, which is full of interesting digressions and asides. Holland (In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire, 2012, etc.), whose lifelong devotion to Herodotus, Thucydides and other classical writers is unquestionable, provides an engaging modern translation. As Holland writes, Herodotus’ “great work is many things—the first example of nonfiction, the text that underlies the entire discipline of history, the most important source of information we have for a vital episode in human affairs—but it is above all a treasure-trove of wonders.” Those just being introduced to the Father of History will agree with the translator’s note that this is “the greatest shaggy-dog story ever written.” Herodotus set out to explore the causes of the Greco-Persian Wars and to explore the inability of East and West to live together. This is as much a world geography and ethnic history as anything else, and Herodotus enumerates social, religious and cultural habits of the vast (known) world, right down to the three mummification options available to Egyptians. This ancient Greek historian could easily be called the father of humor, as well; he irreverently describes events, players and their countless harebrained schemes. Especially enjoyable are his descriptions of the Persians making significant decisions under the influence and then waiting to vote again when sober. The gifts Herodotus gave history are the importance of identifying multiple sources and examining differing views.
A feast for students of ancient history and budding historians of any period.Pub Date: May 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-670-02489-6
Page Count: 840
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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