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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 363.25952309749
EAN num: 9780806527505
ISBN number: 0806527501
Label: Citadel
Manufacturer: Citadel
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: August 01, 2006
Publishing house: Citadel
Sale Popularity Level: 1175140
Studio: Citadel
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'Fascinating reading for true-crime buffs and mystery fans alike.' --Max Allan Collins
Known as the greatest detective in the world, Ellis Parker was the 'American Sherlock Holmes' who solved ninety-eight percent of the murders he pursued. Yet his illustrious forty-year career ended tragically in prison, where he died on the very eve of certain Presidential pardon.
Here is a riveting account of the ultimate sleuth, a man who solved his very first crime as a teen by nabbing the thief who stole his father's horse and buggy. Drawing on the emerging discipline of psychology and his uncanny deductive skills, Parker was a 'profiler' long before the term existed, and often apprehended criminals without ever leaving his desk!
Then came the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's baby son in 1932. From that moment things began to go wrong--terribly wrong--as Parker pushed himself past the bounds of law in pursuit of the truth. A fascinating look at America in the early years of a tumultuous century, Master Detective paints a long-overdue portrait of an exceptionally talented and driven man who, in the end, stopped at nothing in his quest for justice.
'A riveting read. In Reisinger, America's real-life Sherlock Holmes has found his Watson.'--John Lutz
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Rated by buyers 
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Ellis Parker seems to have been a fascinating individual, a pioneering rogue detective whose overreaching methods eventually got the best of him. I had high hopes for this book but was a little disappointed after I got a copy. It's a good read but I find little here that hasn't been covered in previous writings on the Lindbergh case and listing among the suspects Arnold Rothstein (who was murdered in 1928, long before the Lindbergh baby was even born) makes me question the depth of the research here. Also, the author's admission at the beginning of creating fictional dialogue throughout the book to me negates much of its value as either history or true crime. That convention of inventing conversation in a supposed nonfiction work went out of style years ago and was never justifiable in the very first place. Beyond these reservations it's still a worthwhile read for anyone interested in early 20th Century crime and criminology.
Rated by buyers -
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 very 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.
Rated by buyers 
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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 very 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 sucess 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 corpse of Lindbergh's son, and became obsessed with a typographical error, misstating the baby's height.
Reisinger has spent a long time sorting out the many strands of this whole episode, so much a reflection of the 1920s-30s, and one gets the full flavor of Parker's seat-of-the-pants background, and his rise in law enforcement (before modern forensics). One of his prior successes, involving a pickled corpse and 175 suspects, suggests why Parker had become such a power to be reckoned with, and why confessions often flowed when he was "on the case." But then the "most famous detective" met the "most hated man in America." The results weren't pretty, and both suffered the consequences of an unforgiving public.
The author has done a lot of his own spadework (from primary sources), and navigated the many personalities and complex historical record well. There is some small confusion on p. 170, with details of how Rail 16 was traced to Hauptmann's attic (the original matching floor board was NOT the one traced to Dorn Milling in SC), but the correct analysis of the most recent fibre investigation is properly cited. In this modern world, many of these reports, along with the handwriting samples, are now available on the Internet. Every man is now his own detective, and each of us can scrutinize the sources so ably marshaled here. The reader is in Mr. Reisinger's debt (over 300 pages and excellent photos) for bringing more light to such a convoluted chapter in American history. It is a handsome and worthy addition to anyone's library, certainly anyone who has a taste for real-life mysteries and the hard work that was (and is) required to solve them. In a world of revisionism and innuendo, such books are rare and to be treasured.
Allen
Moderator: LindyKidnap
Rated by buyers -
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.
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