Synopses & Reviews
In the tradition of Longitude and The Professor and the Madman, the fascinating story of a scientific breakthrough that solved one of the most brutal murders in England's history and forever changed the criminal justice system. 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. A solitary fingerprint was the only piece of evidence. For fifteen years, Dr. Henry Faulds had been trying to convince Scotland Yard to adopt his system of identification. But when an elite society scientist, Francis Galton, stumbled across Faulds's idea and claimed it as his own, his lofty status quickly convinced Scotland Yard to attempt prosecuting its first murder case using fingerprint evidence. There was one problem, though. Henry Faulds was on the side of the defense. The very father of fingerprinting said that the fingerprint found at the scene did not belong to the accused. Fingerprints is the dramatic human story of how technology found its way into the criminal justice system, of one brilliant, flawed man's struggle to retain rightful credit for his discovery, and of a confoundingly difficult murder case. Impeccably researched and dramatically told, it traces fingerprinting to its present-day applications and illustrates why the unique tracks we leave with our fingers continue to be one of the most important means of identifying criminals.
Synopsis
This is the fascinating story of a scientific breakthrough that solved one of the most brutal murders in England's history and forever changed the criminal justice system. "Fingerprints" traces fingerprinting to its present-day applications and illustrates why the unique tracks we leave with our fingers continue to be one of the most important means of identifying criminals. Illustrations.