Great Jones - Shop now
$9.99 with 44 percent savings
Digital List Price: $17.99

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Sold by Amazon.com Services LLC.
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

James Morton
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The First Detective: The Life and Revolutionary Times of Vidocq Kindle Edition

by James Morton (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 out of 5 stars 20 ratings

A biography of the French criminal who became the father of modern criminology and inspired authors like Balzac, Dickens, Doyle, Hugo, and Poe.

Vidocq was the Inspector Morse, the Sherlock Holmes, the James Bond of his day. A notorious criminal in his youth, he became a police officer and employed a gang of ex-convicts as his detectives. He developed innovative criminal indexing techniques and experimented with fingerprinting, until his cavalier attitude towards the thin blue line forced him out of the police. So he began the world’s very first private detective agency. The cases he solved were high profile, and gradually he grew in notoriety. However, his reputation didn’t prevent him from becoming a spy and moving secretly across the dangerous borders of Europe. The First Detective is a gloriously enjoyable historical romp through the eighteenth century in the company of the man whose influence on law enforcement still holds to this day.

Praise for The First Detective

“You really must read . . . The First Detective.” —Sunday Times (UK)

“Entertaining.” —Sunday Telegraph (UK)

Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    285 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    ABRAMS Press
  4. Publication date
    June 30, 2011
  5. File size
    1.9 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
Next slide of product details

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The author tracks the shadowy figure whose exploits inspired novelists." — –Los Angeles Times

"An impressively exhaustive examination." — –Sacramento/San Francisco Book Review

About the Author

James Morton practiced law for twenty-five years before becoming editor of Law Journal and Criminal Lawyer. He is now a full-time freelance writer and the author of many books, including the bestselling Gangland series.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07QNW65HF
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ ABRAMS Press; 1st edition (June 30, 2011)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 30, 2011
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1.9 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 285 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 out of 5 stars 20 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
James Morton

James Morton

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
20 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Top reviews from the United States

  • Ryan Ebert
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fun read
    Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Vidocq is one such person that is endearing. Great read and look into the first ever detective.
    Helpful
     Report
  • jaydynomite
    4.0 out of 5 stars Exhaustively researched, but tiring to read
    Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    For those of you truly interested in Vidocq, and I mean truly, this work will quench your thirst. It is very well researched and contains a great bibliography of additional sources at the end. It is well- written and casual, with a small amount of photos contained therein.
    Sadly, I tended to lose interest, as Vidocq's exploits seemed a tad too unrealistic and his contributions to forensic science were far less than I was led to believe. Neither issue is the fault of the author, however, and this book is a shining example of both a scholarly and enjoyable work.
    7 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Charmed1
    3.0 out of 5 stars Criminal and crime fighter
    Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    Learning about the travails of Vidocq was my goal. This book satisfied my inquiry. It is well researched and well written. An interesting biography of a future criminalist is full of his adventure, troubled youth, and redeeming life working in criminal justice as one of its first detectives.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Aunt Ida
    2.0 out of 5 stars Don't Believe the Hype
    Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    An interesting story if written by someone who wasn't trying to be a cheeky fellow. Would make a great story if written as a straight forward history/biography.
    Helpful
     Report
  • K. Robart
    2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting topic, poor execution, disappointing overall.
    Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2007
    Although this topic is by nature interesting--the story of the world's first detective--the book is so poorly written that the writing style frequently detracts from the interest and confuses. Vidocq was a criminal turned crook-catcher ala England's Jonathan Wilde, with the possible difference that he may have been more honest (although this is by no means sure). Certainly an interesting subject. The writer's assumptions pose a problem, however. Perhaps, Vidocq is well known in the U.K., but as an American, I had never heard of him before. I HAD heard of Jonathan Wilde, but it is conceivable that others hadn't. Yet Morton frequently assumes the reader has knowledge that he or she may not have. His chapters scramble all over the place in time, so that you are continually mentally shuttling back and forth in your attempts to make sense of everything he mentions. His paragraphs are particulary ill-formed. One time I spent 10 minutes or so trying to figure out the identity of a person whose name he just threw into the middle of a paragraph about something else entirely. I never did figure out who the person was. Sometimes his footnotes had no discernable connection to the information they footnoted. And there were plenty of grammatical errors, the most notable, one in which he turned Napoleon into a woman by means of a misplaced modifier.
    19 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Couch Cutie
    4.0 out of 5 stars Stranger than Fiction
    Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2007
    The winds of fortune blow hot and cold for our hero Vidocq as he pursues careers ranging from the criminal to those of crime busting. However, Vidocq is a shrewd, intelligent individual that refuses to be pigeonholed by either of these pursuits. Prepare to be surprised and delighted by the many twists and hairpin turns of this exceptional man's unbelievable life.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • psychofluffybunny
    2.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating subject, terrible book
    Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2012
    I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it delivers what it promises: a biography of the adventurer, criminal, spy, and policeman Eugene Vidocq. On the other hand, the book is so badly written that it makes reading about this fascinating man a chore. Although the book is organized (I use the term loosely) more or less chronologically, the narrative sporadically jumps forward in time at several points, such that I often found myself looking back through the last coupe of pages I'd read to make sure I hadn't missed anything. I put the book aside in frustration and/or confusion more than once, and it took me several attempts to slog through the entire thing. Vidocq deserves an engaging and compelling biography, but unfortunately this isn't it.
    4 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report

Report an issue


Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report