{"product_id":"conan-doyle-for-the-defense-book-margalit-fox-9780399589478","title":"Conan Doyle for the Defense","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn this thrilling true-crime procedural, the creator of Sherlock Holmes uses his unparalleled detective skills to exonerate a German Jew wrongly convicted of murder.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eUSA Today's \u003c\/i\u003eFive new books you won't want to miss  \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFor all the scores of biographies of Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the most famous detective in the world, there is no recent book that tells this remarkable story--in which Conan Doyle becomes a real-life detective on an actual murder case. In \u003ci\u003eConan Doyle for the Defense, \u003c\/i\u003e Margalit Fox takes us step by step inside Conan Doyle's investigative process and illuminates a murder mystery that is also a morality play for our time--a story of ethnic, religious, and anti-immigrant bias. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In 1908, a wealthy woman was brutally murdered in her Glasgow home. The police found a convenient suspect in Oscar Slater--an immigrant Jewish cardsharp--who, despite his obvious innocence, was tried, convicted, and consigned to life at hard labor in a brutal Scottish prison. Conan Doyle, already world famous as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was outraged by this injustice and became obsessed with the case. Using the methods of his most famous character, he scoured trial transcripts, newspaper accounts, and eyewitness statements, meticulously noting myriad holes, inconsistencies, and outright fabrications by police and prosecutors. Finally, in 1927, his work won Slater's freedom. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Margalit Fox, a celebrated longtime writer for \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times, \u003c\/i\u003e has a nose for interesting facts, the ability to construct a taut narrative arc, and a Dickens-level gift for concisely conveying personality (Kathryn Schulz, \u003ci\u003eNew York\u003c\/i\u003e). In C\u003ci\u003eonan Doyle for the Defense, \u003c\/i\u003e she immerses readers in the science of Edwardian crime detection and illuminates a watershed moment in the history of forensics, when reflexive prejudice began to be replaced by reason and the scientific method.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eConan Doyle for the Defense\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSplendid . . . The ingredients are too good to pass up: a famous detective novelist actually playing detective, a man serving time for a murder he did not commit, and a criminal justice system slowly, and reluctantly, reckoning with the advent of forensic science.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e--\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eSarah Weinman, \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e The New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEntertaining . . . The details of this judicial travesty--unreliable witnesses, dodgy evidence and a series of coincidences that led to Slater's guilty verdict--seem ripped from one of Conan Doyle's Holmes tales.\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eNewsday\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49889811136785,"sku":"CIN0399589473G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49974201483537,"sku":"CIN0399589473VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50194940166417,"sku":"GOR013884787","price":8.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51002143342865,"sku":"NIN9780399589478","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":52816400482577,"sku":"CIN0399589473A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0399589473.jpg?v=1751102742","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/products\/conan-doyle-for-the-defense-book-margalit-fox-9780399589478","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}