Essays by noted historians of the past and present, on the problems of investigation, offer a series of intriguing case studies in the relationship between historical research and detective fiction.

Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- PART I. VIGILANTE JUSTICE? : 1. What is evidence? The relativist view / Carl L. Becker -- 2. On believing what one reads : the dangers of popular revisionism / C. Vann Woodward -- 3. Who killed John Doe? The problem of testimony / Robin G. Collingwood -- 4. Tracer of missing persons : biographer and autobiographer / Henry F. Pringle -- PART II. HABEAS CORPUS : 5. The secret of the ebony cabinet : a search for "lost" manuscripts / Christopher Morley -- 6. The mystery of Marie Roget, and other diversions : another search for lost manuscripts / Richard D. Altick -- 7. The case of the man in love : forgery, impure and simple / Paul M. Angle -- 8.The case of the men who weren't there : problems of local pride / Arthur Pierce Middleton and Douglass Adair -- PART III. THE ADVERSARY METHOD : 9. The case of the eyewitnesses : "a lie is a lie, even in Latin" / Thomas Spencer Jerome -- 10.The case of the cheating documents : false authority and the problem of surmise / Allan Nevins -- 11. A medley of mysteries : a number of dogs that didn't bark / Joseph Barzun and Henry F. Graff -- 12. The case of the mysterious diary : evidence over time / Roy N. Lokken and Frank Maloy Anderson -- 13. The case of the harried scholars : of the world that is too much with us / Millar Burrows -- PART IV. THE CASE METHOD : 14. The case of the needless death : reconstructing the scene / J.C. Beaglehole -- 15. The private eye : going over the ground / Ernle Bradford and Leo Deuel -- 16. The case of the missing telegrams : suppressing evidence / C.M. Woodhouse -- 17. The case of the very minor matter : inadvertent error / L.C. Hector -- 18. The case of the feigning man : medical-psychological evidence / David Donald --PART V. ALLIES : 19.The case of the grassy knoll : the romance of conspiracy / John Kaplan -- 20. The Roman coin mystery : the romance of objects / Tom B. Jones -- 21. The case of the silent witnesses : the romance of gadgetry / Gerald S. Hawkins and John B. White --22. The case of the fit in the choir : the application of psychoanalysis / Erik H. Erikson -- PART VI. VERDICTS : 23. The strange nature of pure joy : the historian's pleasure principle / William B. Willcox -- 24. The pleasures of doubt : re-enacting the crime / Robin G. Collingwood -- 25. The problem of hope : contemporary history / Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. -- 26. Conclusion : a letter to Groucho Marx / Russell Baker.