James McParland (also spelled McParlan), the Pinkerton operative whose exposure of the “Molly Maguires” made his name as a celebrated 19th-century detective, was fictionalized as Birdy Edwards (alias James McMurdo) in Doyle’s The Valley Fear and as the Old Man, manager of the San Francisco office of the Continental Detective Agency in former Pinkerton man Dashiell Hammett’s stories. This excellent biography, highly readable and meticulously scholarly, is especially recommended to readers who enjoyed Daniel Stashower’s The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War (reviewed in Mystery Scene #130).

Was McParland the courageous hero his boss Allan Pinkerton and other contemporaries celebrated or a cowardly informer and tool of labor-crushing capitalists whose whole career was based on mendacity? Riffenburgh, apparently free of preconceptions and axes to grind, presents a balanced account, finding much to admire but much to question about his subject. Certainly, McParland was a superb witness. Quotes from his courtroom testimony, especially his duels with Clarence Darrow in a series of 1907 trials, are extremely entertaining.

The 86 pages of notes, as well as identifying sources, provide additional information and analysis, sometimes substantial bibliographic essays. The bibliography of more than 20 pages cites printed sources, court reports, and documents, among them an unpublished manuscript by mystery novelist Zelda Popkin, The Great McParland, that combined his two greatest cases but proved factually unreliable.

(Reviewed from an advance proof copy. The index was not seen.)