The Murder Room
The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases

The Murder Room deals with the real life elite criminal investigators and profilers who created the Vidocq Society, a place where they all kick back, relax and ponder cold cases. Founded by three extremely different men, the group has gone on to solve many cases deemed unsolvable. The idea of the book itself is good. The group is diverse and fascinating and the cases themselves are often strange. The problem with the book is that it jumps around too much from one case to another, so much so that its hard to figure out if theyre going to address the case again in the book. Theres also the emphasis on Frank Benders love life, which is a little much and not even really on topic. They could make the case that hes a charming cad, but his romantic escapades get old after a while. The book holds attention though, even if the author tends to paint the police departments as overwhelmed and eager to take the credit the Vidocq Society earns, which makes me wonder how enthusiastically those departments read this book. The aspects of cold case work is fascinating though, in particular profiling, which many people have a very distorted concept of.

(3.0) Very interesting subject, could use a little more editing and reorganizing I heard about this book on the radio (probably Fresh Air, safe bet) and was immediately intrigued. The best of the world of investigation and forensics coming together to solve the toughest (or just covered-up) murders a......more

This is the story of the founding of the Vidocq Society and some of its success in solving cold cases. The Vidocq Society is named after Eugène François Vidocq. Vidocq is considered to be the father of modern criminology and of the French police department. He is also regarded as the first private d......more