'Kate Winkler Dawson is an unbelievable crime historian and such a talented storyteller.' Karen Kilgariff, cohost of the My Favorite Murder podcast 'Heinrich changed criminal investigations forever, and anyone fascinated by the myriad detective series and TV shows about forensics will want to read [this].' The Washington Post 'An entertaining, absorbing combination of biography and true crime.' Kirkus 'Kate Winkler Dawson has researched both her subject and his cases so meticulously that her reconstructions and descriptions made me feel part of the action rather than just a reader and bystander. She has brought to life Edward Oscar Heinrich's character, determination, and skill so vividly that one is left bemused that this man is so little known to most of us.' Patricia Wiltshire, author of Traces and The Nature of Life and Death Berkeley, California, 1933. In a lab filled with curiosities - beakers, microscopes, Bunsen burners and hundreds of books - sat an investigator who would go on to crack at least 2,000 cases in his 40-year career. Known as the 'American Sherlock Holmes', Edward Oscar Heinrich was one of the greatest - and first - forensic scientists, with an uncanny knack for finding clues, establishing evidence and deducing answers with a skill that seemed almost supernatural. Based on years of research and thousands of never-before-published primary source materials, American Sherlock is a true-crime account capturing the life of the man who spearheaded the invention of a myriad of new forensic tools, including blood-spatter analysis, ballistics, lie-detector tests and the use of fingerprints as courtroom evidence.

London in 1952 was a still recovering from the devastation wrought by World War II: rationing was still in effect, rates of crime and unemployment were high, and the national economy was in shambles. In an effort to repay its massive war debt, the British government was selling its clean-burning coal to America, and Londoners were forced to make do with the cheap brown coal. That winter, as the weather turned bitter, buses, trucks and automobiles, and thousands of coal-burning hearths belched particulate matter into the air. But the smog that descended on December 5th of 1952 was different; it was a sulfurous type of smog that held the city hostage for five long days. Mass transit ground to a halt, criminals roamed the streets, and some 12,000 people, many of them elderly or ill, died. What would later be called the Great Smog of 1952 remains one of the greatest environmental disasters of all time. That same December, there was another killer at large in London. John Reginald Christie murdered at least seven women in his flat in Notting Hill--luring women to his home with the promise of a home remedy for bronchitis, instructing his victims to inhale carbon-monoxide laden coal gas until they passed out. He then raped and strangled them, burying two in the garden, stashing several more in a papered-over kitchen alcove, and his wife of 34 years beneath the floorboards of their parlor. The arrest of the "Beast of Rillington Place" caused a media frenzy; moreover, Christie's role in sending an innocent man to the gallows was the impetus for the abolition of the death penalty in the UK. The smog, meanwhile, was slow to be implicated. Indeed, the British government did their level best to disavow any connection between the death rate and the air quality, blaming the sudden spike in deaths on fictitious flu epidemic. Eventually, however, the media and one crusading Member of Parliament launched a fight that would be the beginning of the global clean air movement. The Clean Air Act of 1956 was a direct result of the Great Smog, and that legislation provided a model for the rest of the world, including the U.S. In a braided narrative that draws on extensive interviews, never-before published material and archival research, Kate Winkler Dawson captivatingly recounts the intersecting stories of the these two killers and their crimes.

'A master-class in bringing history to life, in all its creepy, twisted glory' - Karen Kilgariff, co-host of My Favorite Murder podcast 'Every true crime fan will be riveted by Kate's master story-telling of this unforgettable tale' - Paul Holes, author of Unmasked: Crime Scenes, Cold Cases and My Hunt for the Golden State Killer The thrilling story of Edward Rulloff - a serial murderer who was called 'too intelligent to be killed' - and the array of 19th-century investigators who were convinced his brain held the key to finally understanding the criminal mind. Rulloff was a brilliant yet utterly amoral murderer - some have called him a 'Victorian-era Hannibal Lecter' - whose crimes spanned decades, but by 1871 he was captured, chained in a cell - a psychopath holding court while curious 19th-century 'mindhunters' got to work. From alienists (early psychiatrists who tried to analyse the source of his madness) to neurologists (who wanted to dissect his brain) to phrenologists (who analysed the bumps on his head to determine his character), each one thought he held the key to understanding the essential question: is evil born or made? Expanding on her hit podcast, Tenfold More Wicked, acclaimed crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson draws on hundreds of source materials and never-before-shared historical documents to present one of the first glimpses into the mind of a serial killer - a century before the term was coined - through the scientists whose work would come to influence criminal justice for decades to come.

In winter 1952, London automobiles and thousands of coal-burning hearths belched particulate matter into the air. But the smog that descended on December 5th of 1952 was different; it was a type that held the city hostage for five long days. Mass transit ground to a halt, criminals roamed the streets, and 12,000 people died. That same month, there was another killer at large in London: John Reginald Christie, who murdered at least seven women. In a braided narrative that draws on extensive interviews, never-before-published material, and archival research, Dawson captivatingly recounts the intersecting stories of the these two killers and their longstanding impact on modern history.