"One of our most brilliant storytellers...a gripping page-turner, masterfully drawn and full of truth, dedication, and darkness."

-Michael Connelly, author, the Harry Bosch novels

"Wow! Wow! Wow! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! What a book!"

Liane Hansen, NPR

Weekend Edition host

"Terrifying, engrossing, inspirational, and surprisingly funny." --Kirkus Reviews

"Some of the most exciting detective work I've ever read."

-- John Walsh, America's Most Wanted

The New York Times bestseller

Los Angeles Times bestseller

USA Today bestseller

Publisher's Weekly bestseller

Nominated for the Edgar Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award

Finalist, Golden Dagger Award,

British Crime Writers Association, Best Nonfiction Crime Book of the Year

St. Louis Post-Dispatch True-Crime Book of the Year

Optioned by the producers of CSI and Criminal Minds

The Murder Room

The classic true adventures of the living Sherlock Holmes and his partners, who catch the world's most depraved killers--after lunch

What if Sherlock Holmes were real and Watson was a Pulitzer-nominated journalist who told his story?

That fantasy premise comes to life in The Murder Room as the brilliant forensic psychologist Richard Walter, the thin man known from Scotland Yard to the NYPD as "the living Sherlock Holmes," joins forces with FBI agent-turned-private eye William Fleisher and famed forensic artist Frank Bender to create a secretive society of great detectives who hunt down the highest-IQ cold killers law enforcement can't catch.

They recruit the finest sleuths in the world, private eyes, pathologists, men and women from Interpol and the FBI including Robert Ressler, to travel to a 19th Century Philadelphia private club to examine cold cases over a white tablecloth lunch.

They call themselves the Vidocq Society after the flamboyant 19th Century French detective Eugene Francois Vidocq, whose memoirs inspired Edgar Allan Poe Poe to create the first fictional detective and inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to invent Sherlock Holmes.

But these adventures are real. Moved by the gravest injustices, "The Heirs of Holmes," as The New York Times calls them, led by Walter, set out across the United States working pro bono to plumb the depths of evil and catch killers, assisting long-suffering families in the name of human decency.

Join bestselling author and Pulitzer-nominated Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Michael Capuzzo, the "Watson" who follows the adventures of the true-life Holmes and his partners as they bring some of the cruelest psychopaths of our time to justice.

What (David Simon's) Homicide was to that era, The Murder Room by Michael Capuzzo is to modern murder solving. It's an exhilarating read with complex characters, devastating cases and breathtaking breaks and turns. Don't be surprised if it also becomes the basis of a TV show or film.

--The St. Petersburg Times

Page-turning passages on...the positioning of the body just so, the hidden meaning of the knife in the chest. Real-life Prof. Plums and Miss Scarlets: Plot your dastardly deeds at your own risk.

--The Washington Post

The book is at once terrifying and satisfying.

--The Philadelphia Inquirer

Superb and tantalizing...heartbreaking cold cases that have been investigated by the forensic dream team that is the legendary Vidocq Society. The once forgotten crimes are horrendous, each bigger-than-life detective more outrageous than the next, and the circuitous paths they take to find long-delayed justice are impossible to forget.

--Stephen White, New York Times bestselling author

It's like seating Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Inspector Morse, Jessica Fletcher, Kurt Wallander and Kojak in front of a sumptuous meal, presenting them with a cold case that needs an injection of new thinking, and watching the sparks fly.

--The Guardian, London

Riveting.

The international science journal Nature

Difficult to put down for readers who solve crimes in real life or who act as armchair crime-solvers...a real-life mélange of the shows Criminal Minds, The Mentalist, CSI, Lie to Me, Cold Case

--The Dallas Morning News

A fascinating and fantastically gruesome read.

--The Scotsman (Edinburgh)

The Murder Room is a grabber....the true-crime book of the year.

--The St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A fascinating read that indeed is stranger — and more compelling — than fiction.

--The Asbury Park Press

An incredible slice of real life adventure led by a cast of the most inventive and unique minds in the world as they hunt down some of the most depraved and dangerous killers who had literally gotten away with murder.

--West Virginia Herald-Dispatch

Capuzzo is a masterful writer and storyteller…Who will benefit from reading this book? Anyone who reads it. For starters, personnel in every law enforcement agency across the country; students studying government, sociology, psychology, judges, lawyers and law students; state and federal statesmen and women; physicians; voters; and especially you, because crime and disappearances can really happen to you and to those you know.

--Galveston Daily News

Murder-mystery fans would kill for entry to the Vidocq Society...Imagine the thrill of being in the same room with some of the world's most resourceful detectives, coroners, profilers, polygraph experts and forensic artists when they're presented details of a particularly perplexing homicide and challenged to put their formidable minds to solving it.

--Bookpage

With impressive access and a powerful narrative presence, Michael Capuzzo delivers an intimate portrait of the greatest crime fighters of our time. The Murder Room is as addictive as the most inventive of thriller novels, but let us not forget that these are true stories; the monsters in this book are real, and so are the dedicated men who hunt them.

--Jason Kersten, author of Journal of the Dead

MICHAEL CAPUZZO

"One of our most brilliant storytellers...a gripping page-turner, masterfully drawn and full of truth, dedication, and darkness."

-Michael Connelly, author, the Harry Bosch novels

"Wow! Wow! Wow! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! What a book!"

Liane Hansen, NPR

Weekend Edition host

"Terrifying, engrossing, inspirational, and surprisingly funny." --Kirkus Reviews

"Some of the most exciting detective work I've ever read."

-- John Walsh, America's Most Wanted

The Murder Room

The classic true adventures of the living Sherlock Holmes and his partners, who catch the world's most depraved killers--after lunch

What if Sherlock Holmes were real and Watson was a Pulitzer-nominated journalist who told his story?

They recruit the finest sleuths in the world, private eyes, pathologists, men and women from Interpol and the FBI including Robert Ressler, to travel to a 19th Century Philadelphia private club to examine cold cases over a white tablecloth lunch.

They call themselves the Vidocq Society after the flamboyant 19th Century French detective Eugene Francois Vidocq, whose memoirs inspired Edgar Allan Poe Poe to create the first fictional detective and inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to invent Sherlock Holmes.

But these adventures are real. Moved by the gravest injustices, "The Heirs of Holmes," as The New York Times calls them, led by Walter, set out across the United States working pro bono to plumb the depths of evil and catch killers, assisting long-suffering families in the name of human decency.

Join bestselling author and Pulitzer-nominated Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Michael Capuzzo, the "Watson" who follows the adventures of the true-life Holmes and his partners as they bring some of the cruelest psychopaths of our time to justice.

Critical Praise

MICHAEL CAPUZZO

"One of our most brilliant storytellers...a gripping page-turner, masterfully drawn and full of truth, dedication, and darkness."

-Michael Connelly, author, the Harry Bosch novels

"Wow! Wow! Wow! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! What a book!"

Liane Hansen, NPR

Weekend Edition host

"Terrifying, engrossing, inspirational, and surprisingly funny." --Kirkus Reviews

​

"Some of the most exciting detective work I've ever read."

-- John Walsh, America's Most Wanted

The Murder Room

The classic true adventures of the living Sherlock Holmes and his partners, who catch the world's most depraved killers--after lunch

What if Sherlock Holmes were real and Watson was a Pulitzer-nominated journalist who told his story?

They recruit the finest sleuths in the world, private eyes, pathologists, men and women from Interpol and the FBI including Robert Ressler, to travel to a 19th Century Philadelphia private club to examine cold cases over a white tablecloth lunch.

They call themselves the Vidocq Society after the flamboyant 19th Century French detective Eugene Francois Vidocq, whose memoirs inspired Edgar Allan Poe Poe to create the first fictional detective and inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to invent Sherlock Holmes.

But these adventures are real. Moved by the gravest injustices, "The Heirs of Holmes," as The New York Times calls them, led by Walter, set out across the United States working pro bono to plumb the depths of evil and catch killers, assisting long-suffering families in the name of human decency.

Join bestselling author and Pulitzer-nominated Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Michael Capuzzo, the "Watson" who follows the adventures of the true-life Holmes and his partners as they bring some of the cruelest psychopaths of our time to justice.

​

Critical Praise