Late one evening in the summer of 1922, Henry Wilkens burst through the doors of the emergency room covered in his wife’s blood. But was he a grieving husband or a ruthless killer who conspired with bandits to have her murdered? To find out, the San Francisco police turned to technology and a new machine that had just been invented in Berkeley by a rookie detective, a visionary police chief, and a teenage magician with a showman’s touch. John Larson, Gus Vollmer, and Leonarde Keeler hoped the lie detector would make the justice system fairer, but the flawed device soon grew too powerful for them to control. It poisoned their lives, turned fast friends into bitter enemies, and, as it conquered America and the world, transformed our relationship with the truth in ways that are still being felt.
My guest today is Amit Katwala, writer and editor for Wired in London. His book is called “Tremors in the Blood: Murder, Obsession, and the Birth of the Lie Detector.”
pictured: August Vollmer
More about the author here at his website.
The author’s Instagram account.
