American Sherlock

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In 1910, a family friend asked 17-year-old Luke S. May, the subject of this admiring biography from first-time author Filby, to help find who fatally shot a 14-year-old boy in Salt Lake City. Thanks to May's keen observation skills, the killer was caught and punished, and so began a lifetime of detective work for May. By the time he was 18, he had his own private detective agency, and in his heyday, in the 1920s and '30s, May was known as the American Sherlock Holmes, a pioneer of fingerprint analysis and profiling who designed equipment such as a fingerprint camera, a sound recorder, and a microscope he used for handwriting and hair analysis. As a private criminologist, he was sought after by law enforcement agencies across the nation. In 1933, he was appointed chief of detectives of the Seattle Police Department, which he subsequently reorganized and modernized. During World WWII, May was on active duty with the Navy, though much of his work was classified. After the war, his business wound down as police departments and law enforcement agencies had their own labs and forensic specialists on staff. He died in 1965, but his legacy as an early criminologist lives on. Filby writes with enthusiasm and verve. This is an important addition to the history of forensic science. * Publishers Weekly * Many readers have thrilled to the tales of Sherlock Holmes and his powers of deduction, but deduction only goes so far. Filby details the life of Luke May, the "American Sherlock" who pioneered the field of forensics. A true scientist, May created case files focused almost solely on evidence, leaving out the context of the crimes. Acting like a detective himself, Filby here uses news accounts to fill in the details of May's work, piecing together the cases in which the scientist refined methods in criminal investigation, such as using a special camera and film to capture fingerprints that had previously been missed; perfecting a sound recorder; analyzing bullet-trajectory and blood-spatter; and suspect profiling. May's reputation was cemented in the 1910s, when handgun analysis helped solve a controversial case involving the Wobblies and WWI vets in Washington state. Over more than four decades, May, a man who liked "snappy hats," logged several thousand cases, until close to his death in 1965. With exhaustive notes and bibliography, this could augment criminal justice curricula or allow true-crime buffs to geek out. * Booklist * Well researched and engagingly written, American Sherlock rediscovers Luke S. May, a largely forgotten pioneer in early twentieth-century scientific crime fighting. In recounting May's colorful career and most remarkable cases, Evan E. Filby traces the development of forensic science in the United States and offers a fast-paced narrative that will be particularly interesting to true-crime aficionados. -- Jeffrey S. Adler, professor of history and criminology at the University of Florida, author of Murder in New Orleans: The Creation of Jim Crow Policing ( 2019) and First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt: Homicide in Chicago, 1875-1920 (2006) With Evan E. Filby's American Sherlock we have, for the first time, a detailed assessment of the life and career of Luke S. May. May was a highly influential figure in the development of forensic science and scientific detection in North America in the first half of the twentieth century yet he is surprisingly hardly remembered. Filby's book accurately reinstates him in his rightful place in the history of scientific detection. Clearly and accessibly written, with a wealth of detail on May's life and work, American Sherlock appeals to a wide audience including fans of true crime writing and those with an interest in the development of scientific detection. -- Alison Adam, professor of Science, Technology and Society at Sheffield Hallam University, UK; author of A History of Forensic Science: British Beginnings in the Twentieth Century