Ariveting true crime story that vividly recounts the birth of modern forensics.At the end of the nineteenth century, serial murderer Joseph Vacher, dubbed "The Killer of Little Shepherds," terrorized the French countryside. He eluded authorities for years--until he ran up against prosecutor Emile Fourquet and Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne, the era's most renowned criminologist. The two men typified the Belle Époque, a period of immense scientific achievement and fascination with science's promise to reveal the secrets of the human condition.With high drama and stunning detail, Douglas Starr relates the infamous crime and punishment of Vacher, interweaving the story of how Lacassagne and his colleagues developed forensic science as we know it. We see one of the earliest uses of criminal profiling, as Fourquet painstakingly collects eyewitness accounts, leading to Vacher's arrest. And we see the twists and turns of the celebrated trial: to disprove Vacher's...