The First Detective: The Life and Revolutionary Times of Vidocq, Criminal, Spy, and Private Eye

Eug%C3%A8ne-Fran%C3%A7ois Vidocq (1775-1857) may be the most fascinating guy you've never heard of. A career criminal turned informant turned police officer turned private detective turned authors' muse (with stints in between as spy, memoirist, and semi-professional litigant), Vidocq introduced methods of sleuthing still used today. He was the first to use undercover agents, keep records of arrests, take foot and fingerprints, as well as inventing both indelible ink and unalterable paper. A long-time subject of French TV and film, his detective agency predates the more famous one founded by Pinkerton, and he inspired not only Balzac and Hugo (he was the model for both the detective and the criminal in Les Miserables), but arguably Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin. Later, he turns up in Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish as an example of the melding of police authority with criminality. If only Morton's biography, originally published by Random House in 2006, were as interesting as its subject. Sadly, Morton is a poor judge of when to include illuminating details, and his writing is workman-like. Vidocq deserves better: his life is a Johnny Depp costume drama waiting to happen. Aspiring screenwriters should skip this biography and go straight to Vidocq's memoirs. (July)