Bucholz and the Detectives

Bucholz and the Detectives (1880) is one of more than a dozen mystery novels by the real-life detective, Allan Pinkerton. He founded the Pinkerton Agency, the first detective agency in the United States. The novels promoted his agency, and he set the style for police procedurals ever since: supposedly true cases that he and his Pinkerton men cracked thanks to each detective's "pure and honest heart" (and some tricky undercover work). Here, the crime is murder and robbery. The victim is John Henry Schulte, a rich old German immigrant to Connecticut, killed with an axe. The state attorney suspects the man's young servant, William Bucholz, but can't prove it. And Schulte had a tragic past of screams in the night, including a murderous enemy in the old country. Pinkerton goes to work, applying his famous maxim that, "We never sleep."