A few years ago, journalist Matthew Shaer received a letter from a man who was awaiting trial for a murder he swore he hadn't committed. The most compelling evidence against him? "Touch" DNA — traces of human matter so small and complex that they require algorithmic software to make sense of. Together with fellow reporter Eric Benson, Shaer agreed to look into the case, and the crime that had started it all: a brutal killing at a Seattle Halloween party in which every attendee had been in costume, and more than a few guests had attracted the interest of police investigators. Suspect is the story of what Shaer and Benson found. It is a story of cutting-edge science and mislaid justice, race and policing, and the kinds of weighty choices that cops and prosecutors make every day in cities and towns across the country — choices that, once made, are impossible to reverse.

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