Michael Capuzzo – författare

Three of the world's greatest detectives - a renowned former FBI agent, a forensic sculptor and an eccentric profiler known as 'the living Sherlock Holmes' - were distraught at the growing tide of unsolved murders. And so William Fleisher, Frank Bender and Richard Walter pledged themselves to a quest for justice . . .They invited the finest collection of forensic minds ever assembled, drawn from five continents, to bring the coldest killers in the world to account. Named after the first detective - Eugene Francois Vidocq - the Vidocq Society meets monthly to solve a cold case.The Murder Room paints a chilling picture as the three partners travel far and wide to hunt - among countless others - the ruthless killers of a millionaire's son, a serial killer who carves off faces, and a child killer enjoying fifty years of freedom and dark fantasy.Bestselling author Michael Capuzzo brings to life a world of dazzling forensic science, evil as old as the Bible and at its centre a group of passionate detectives - inspired by their own wounded hearts to make a stand for truth, goodness and justice in a world gone mad.

Michael Capuzzo, the author of the New York Times bestseller Close to Shore , brings listeners into the Vidocq Society, a team of the world’s foremost forensic investigators, who meet each month to solve cold cases and bring murderers to justice. Three of the greatest detectives in the world—a renowned FBI agent turned private eye, a sculptor and lothario who speaks to the dead, and an eccentric profiler known as “the living Sherlock Holmes”—were heartsick over the growing tide of unsolved murders of innocents. Good friends and sometime rivals William Fleisher, Frank Bender, and Richard Walter decided that something had to be done, and they pledged themselves to a grand quest for justice. Named for the first modern detective, the Parisian Eugène François Vidocq—the flamboyant Napoleonic real life sleuth who inspired Sherlock Holmes—the Vidocq Society meets monthly in its secretive chambers to solve a cold murder over a gourmet lunch.The Murder Room draws the listener into a chilling, darkly humorous, awe-inspiring world as the three partners travel far from their Victorian dining room to hunt the ruthless murders of a millionaire’s son, a serial killer who carves off faces, and a child killer enjoying fifty years of freedom and dark fantasy.

Combining rich historical detail and a harrowing, pulse-pounding narrative, Close to Shore brilliantly re-creates the summer of 1916, when a rogue Great White shark attacked swimmers along the New Jersey shore, triggering mass hysteria and launching the most extensive shark hunt in history. In July 1916 a lone Great White left its usual deep-ocean habitat and headed in the direction of the New Jersey shoreline. There, near the towns of Beach Haven and Spring Lake--and, incredibly, a farming community eleven miles inland--the most ferocious and unpredictable of predators began a deadly rampage: the first shark attacks on swimmers in U.S. history. For Americans celebrating an astoundingly prosperous epoch, fueled by the wizardry of revolutionary inventions, the arrival of this violent predator symbolized the limits of mankind''s power against nature. Interweaving a vivid portrait of the era and meticulously drawn characters with chilling accounts of the shark''s five attacks and the frenzied hunt that ensued, Michael Capuzzo has created a nonfiction historical thriller with the texture of Ragtime and the tension of Jaws. From the unnerving inevitability of the first attack on the esteemed son of a prosperous Philadelphia physician to the spine-tingling moment when a farm boy swimming in Matawan Creek feels the sandpaper-like skin of the passing shark, Close to Shore is an undeniably gripping saga. Heightening the drama are stories of the resulting panic in the citizenry, press and politicians, and of colorful personalities such as Herman Oelrichs, a flamboyant millionaire who made a bet that a shark was no match for a man (and set out to prove it); Museum of Natural History ichthyologist John Treadwell Nichols, faced with the challenge of stopping a mythic sea creature about which little was known; and, most memorable, the rogue Great White itself moving through a world that couldn''t conceive of either its destructive power or its moral right to destroy. Scrupulously researched and superbly written, Close to Shore brings to life a breathtaking, pivotal moment in American history. Masterfully written and suffused with fascinating period detail and insights into the science and behavior of sharks, Close to Shore recounts a breathtaking, pivotal moment in American history with startling immediacy.From the Trade Paperback edition.