"Brilliant Deduction" asks the question "who are the greatest detectives
ever" and then attempts to find an answer which doesn't involve
fictional characters. The result is nine men whose careers in the 19th
and early 20th century represent the heroic years of real-world
detection, from the very first full-time professionals to the
Prohibition era. Each chapter examines a different detective (or, in one
case, a detective partnership) who became a legend in his own time, and
in some cases a full-fledged celebrity. At the same time, the larger
narrative ties these individual histories together to explore how
real-life detectives rose to such fame for nearly 100 years, then fell
back into obscurity.