Fingerprints: the origins of crime detection and the murder case that launched forensic science by Colin Beavan. 232 pp.
A lot of this book was actually about the various men who contributed to the science of dactylography jockeying for position when taking credit. (As usual, the better-connected guy who didn't do much work got the credit, rather than the average guy who did much more research.) I found it interesting that, once fingerprints were accepted as unique identifiers, the police used them just to determine whether a particular captured criminal was a repeat offender. Attempting to use fingerprint evidence to prove that someone committed a crime came later, and was more difficult to get accepted. Also, apparently horses and cows have unique noseprints--who knew?
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