18 Tiny Deaths

Starred review from December 23, 2019
Journalist Goldfarb takes an eye-opening look in his fascinating biography at the crucial role played by heiress Frances Glessner Lee (1878–1962) in the development of U.S. scientific crime examination. Goldfarb puts Lee’s achievements in perspective by showing how, as recently as the early 20th century, there were no requirements of expertise on the part of the officials in charge of death investigations, who were often inept and sometimes corrupt. In 1929, Lee decided to use her financial resources to reform the system after reconnecting with an old friend, George Magrath, who had studied legal medicine in Europe. In addition to funding Magrath’s research, Lee used her skills at making miniatures to recreate crime scenes in exquisite detail as a teaching tool. Lee became a forceful proponent of death investigations becoming the responsibility of trained medical examiners, in a sustained campaign that included a 1935 meeting with J. Edgar Hoover to educate him about legal medicine. By making use of primary sources, including Lee’s own unpublished memoir, the author more than makes the case for his astonishing proposition that this “decorous grandmother with a preference for brimless Queen Mary hats... was nearly single-handedly responsible for the establishment of legal medicine” in the U.S. Goldfarb’s storytelling gifts will lead readers of insightful true crime to hope he will write more in the field. Devotees of TV’s CSI will have their minds blown. Agent: Tamar Rydzinski, Context Literary.