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When the Piltdown skull—the “missing link”—was sensationally
exposed as a fraud in 1953, the obvious question was, whodunnit? Suspects
included several famous British scientists, the original discoverer, Charles
Dawson, an amateur palaeontologist, and even Conan Doyle. John Evangelist Walsh,
the author of Unravelling Piltdown (Random House, $25.95, ISBN 0 679
44444 0), obsessed by the story, mounted an indefatigable pursuit of the hoaxer
and found him. His case is overwhelming, based on much new evidence. The
Edwardian background is nostalgically appealing.