Master Detective: The Life and Crimes of Ellis Parker, America's Real-Life Sherlock Holmes

by John Reisinger

Book Overview

Ellis Parker, a detective known the world over in the early 1900s as the American Sherlock Holmes, was a profiler before the word was ever coined. Master Detective provides a complete picture of the man and the circumstances surrounding his tragic fall. of photos.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0806527501
• ISBN13: 9780806527505
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Citadel Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A Real Find for Armchair Detectives

This is a biography of Ellis Parker, a noted detective and police chief who worked out of his New Jersey headquarters from around 1900 through the mid 1930s. The book starts with a summary of the Lindbergh case, the investigation that was to be Parker's eventual downfall. I have read several complete books on the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, each one advancing a different theory about who the "real" perpetrator of the crime was. One book even accused a member of the Lindbergh family of killing the child and then covering up that horrible accident by staging a kidnapping. I would tend to get caught up in and give some credence to each theory in turn. But this book takes a level-headed, "just the facts, ma'am" approach that doesn't try to fit the evidence to any preconceived theory. So for perhaps the first time, I felt that here I was getting a trustworthy account of the kidnapping. Parker's fault lay in his trying to make the evidence of the kidnapping conform to his own theory about the case, a theory implicating someone other than the convicted Bruno Hauptmann. But prior to his blinkered involvement with this "crime of the century," Parker acted for decades with a clear, Columbo-like lack of preconception that allowed him to solve so many cases that had stumped other policemen. After giving an overview of the Lindbergh kidnapping, this book tracks back to Parker's glory days starting around 1900, and recounts some of the cases he successfully solved. It's amazing to find how many of these real-life murders involved elements that have become the quirky clichés of a lot of fictional detective stories. There was the case of the parrot sequestered in a basement so that it wouldn't "talk." There was the case of the dog that did NOT bark. There were two locked-room puzzles. Throughout all this, I was also amazed to find how little about Parker's techniques seemed dated. Except for the lack of DNA knowledge, or even an extensive fingerprint data bank - these cases might have come out of any recent CSI episode. For example, Parker seemed remarkably astute about gauging bullet trajectories. His inferences would compare favorably with those of the best modern ballistics experts. There is no fine writing here. Biographer John Reisinger uses a very plain, reportorial style. Also, the last chapters of the book get a little bogged down in accounts of various extradition proceedings and other legal maneuvers as Parker himself ends up being indicted and sent to prison. However this book is bound to hold your interest most of the way. History buffs will probably enjoy it. And certainly, armchair detectives will find a treasure trove of mayhem here.

A lost chapter brought to life

Good murder mysteries never die - nor fade away - but live on in our collective imaginations. Some of them now seem so preposterous that only a full understanding of the periods in which they happened can explain the hold they once had on us. The Lindbergh kidnapping and murder continues to fascinate, with its many unanswered questions, and a major part of that famous episode has just been resurrected with 'Master Detective, the Life and Crimes of Ellis Parker,' by John Reisinger. The execution of Bruno Richard Hauptmann was delayed for several days in 1936 as a bizarre scenario played out, with Ellis Parker (Burlington County`s Chief of Detectives) at the center. Himself the hero of an adulatory memoir by Fletcher Pratt ("The Cunning Mulatto"), Parker had become embroiled with the Crime of the Century, after a lifetime of sleuthing just one county over from Hopewell, New Jersey. Ironically, he and his son (Ellis jr), and a strange cast of characters, would soon become targets themselves, as they were successfully prosecuted under the new federal "Lindbergh" kidnapping law. "America's Real-Life Sherlock Holmes" had become the victim of his own grandiose schemes and a misplaced alliance with the corrupt one-time governor of New Jersey, Harold Hoffman. Agencies and egos were in full political mode. The tangled story of Parker, his origins, and his rise and fall, has never been adequately sorted out before now. But John Reisinger, in a worthy detective hunt of his own, has located many long-lost documents, and engaging reminiscences of family members, and woven it all together in a well-written book, enlivened by his dry wit and appreciation for the vagaries of human nature. Born in 1871 to a Quaker family, young Ellis had his first brush with crime when his fiddle, and his father's borrowed horse and buggy, were stolen. His quick teenage solution to the deed, accomplished before Arthur Conan Doyle's Study in Scarlet, soon led to full-time employment with county authorities. His energy, ability to interpret physical clues, and a sixth sense in profiling likely culprits, led to an amazing success rate in solving murders - at one point over 98%. What teller of tales, in such a career, could have predicted his comeuppance - his slow but steady involvement with the death of a small child, and his offbeat solution? He died in federal prison, not very long after the man whose guilt he claimed to doubt. Initially, Parker thought that only "dope fiends" would have even dared to kidnap the aviator's son, since the matter seemed beyond any rational explanation. He would later suggest that the real motivation was concealed in a mid-life crisis of the kidnapper, one he gradually placed on the unlikely shoulders of a disbarred lawyer, friend, and sometime naturopath, "Dr." Paul Wendel. It was that convoluted kidnapping, of the "kidnapper" himself, that would prove to be Parker's undoing. He veered from thinking the dead child was, or was not, the actual

I couldn't put it down...

Master Detective takes the reader into the world of crime fighting pre-"CSI". Ellis Parker solved baffling mysteries using logic, intuition and common sense-- without the luxury of DNA, computer simulations or forensic scientists. While the Lindberg case is certain to attract many readers,I found the non-Lindberg crimes to be fascinating as well. You do not have to be a history buff to become engrossed in this book. One cannot help but feel for this great detective (the "American Sherlock Holmes") who met his downfall in the wake of the Lindberg kidnapping. I look forward to reading more from John Reisinger.