Since retiring many years ago from my "day job," I have completed and published four books:  
Boise River Gold Country
Before the Spud: Indians, Buckaroos, and Sheepherders in Pioneer Idaho
Idaho: Year One – The Territory's First Year
American Sherlock: Remembering a Pioneer in Scientific Crime Detection.

You can find more details, and ordering information, for each book by clicking the shorthand title at the top. Or click here to go directly to specific ordering information. To learn more about us and how these books happened, click here.

I continue to post items of (mostly) Idaho history on the South Fork Companion. Here, I am posting items related to forensic science, “true crime,” and American Sherlock, the biography of pioneer criminologist Luke S. May. May handled over two thousand cases during his long career. That included over 270 death cases, involving more than 300 victims. (An amazing number, really, considered that he was a private detective and consulting criminologist.) Thus, I had to leave out far more cases than I could include in the book.

Of course, American Sherlock is about May. Thus, the book focuses on his role in a particular event. Here, I can provide more details on other aspects of a case. I have now posted quite a number of true crime stories. And there will be more … both Luke May cases plus some related to my new interest in Prohibition-enforcement shootings. Thus, a break-out into topic categories might help new readers decide where to start. You can scroll down, or click here, to go directly to the list.

The latest case, not yet on the list, is Turf War Casualty.

A Note About Sources. I try to provide full references for the articles posted on this blog, with a couple of exceptions.

First, I usually summarize the newspapers used. That is, I give a “generic” title, list the identities of the specific publications, and show the overall time span involved. My articles often take “tidbits” from many individual news items – often as many as a dozen or more – so this greatly streamlines the presentation. Any reader curious about a specific point is free to contact me for more information.

Second, I generally do not show the genealogical sources (census records, city directories, etc.) that I always use to supplement and/or verify statements made in newspapers or the Luke May Papers. Most of that information is retrieved from the fee-based online repositories at Ancestry.com, with some other additions. I will include a reminder of those sources when I feel they played a greater-than-normal role in completing the article.