Imagine classic “Whodunits” without fingerprints…

They wouldn’t be quite the same, would they? This reader has just finished a period mystery set in 1907 New York, “A Deadly Affection” by Cuyler Overholt, in which fingerprints played a role in narrowing the suspect pool. In this case, the fingerprints were not a match and the protagonist went on to use psychology to help identify the killer.

In the late 1800’s, identifying the owner of bloody fingerprints left at the crime scene solved a murder in Mark Twain’s “Life on the Mississippi.” In the early 1900’s, Arthur Conan Doyle’s keen detective Sherlock Holmes used fingerprints, as well as interesting found evidence such as footprints and cigarette ashes to positively identify killers.

Fingerprints have also be used to implicate the wrong person, as in Patricia Wentworth’s 1959 novel “The Fingerprint.” A young woman touches the gun when she happens upon a crime scene, almost getting herself convicted for a crime she didn’t commit.  A similar twist is featured in a modern classic, Stieg Larsson’s 2006 novel “The Girl Who Played With Fire.” In this case a gun that was touched by Lizbeth is then used to murder a couple, implicating her in two murders.

Readers will enjoy the article linked below which takes a look at how fingerprints have inspired writers, from 19th century novels where fingerprints were just beginning to be used in crime solving, to modern classics. You may be inspired to think of other favorite books in which fingerprints were key in moving the plot along.


Whodunit? How fingerprinting has inspired writers

Books section, DW.com, August 31, 2016