This is the biography of Glaswegian Allan Pinkerton, who went to America and founded a nationwide police system more than half a century before the FBI was thought of, and a global network of agents which anticipated Interpol by many years. Pinkerton's powers of observation enabled him to solve many cases, initally as a deputy sheriff, then as a detective in the Chicago Police and latterly as principal of the North West detective agency, now known simply as Pinkerton's. This book contains accounts of many of his greatest cases.