Allan Pinkerton: The First Private Eye

The founder of the United States's most famous detective agency was a fiery political radical in his native Scotland before immigrating to America in 1842. The genius for organization and attention to detail that he displayed as a rebel stood Allan Pinkerton (1819-1884) in good stead as he shaped a national organization capable of pursuing criminals across state lines at a time when there was no federal law enforcement. Vividly depicting his subject's eventful career, historian James Mackay corrects longstanding errors as small as Pinkerton's birthday and as large as the canard that he provided Union Army General McClellan with faulty intelligence that prolonged the Civil War.