This little novel is a total departure from the Dr. Thorndyke mysteries, the classic British detective novels that made Freeman’s reputation. The heroine is a perfectly proper but adventurous young woman named Phyllis, who takes over her cousin Charlie’s chambers in Clifford Inn. The presence of some of Charlie’s clothes in the closet gives her the idea of dressing as a man for a fancy dress ball. Unfortunately, Phyllis looks just like the charming Charlie when wearing his ...

All the Dr. Thorndyke books are outstanding. This one is no exception. In this installment, the action centers on one Dr. Humphrey Jardine, who is the narrator of the story, and who himself is the focus of several strange events. Jardine’s troubles begin with a casual walk, where he comes across the body of a man and runs to fetch the police, only to come back and find that the dead man has disappeared. The police can find no trace that the man was ever there, so Jardine ta...

A daring daylight art theft from a crowded museum, a secret document centuries old, and a hidden treasure, these are the elements of the title story in this collection of tales by R. Austin Freeman. Though best known for his famous forensic sleuth, Dr. John Thorndyke, Freeman also on occasion wrote stories featuring other characters. In addition to „The Great Portrait Mystery”, this collection features four more of these tales which show a more whimsical and humorous side o...

In this collection of short stories, the reader learns the killer’s identity long before the brilliant medical detective takes the stage. These are brilliant early examples of open secrets where the question is not who, but how will they be caught?

A gang of jewel thieves has come to the attention of the police. Will Dr. Thorndike be able to find the leader and the jewels? It would seem that the jewel merchant has a strong room with a puzzle lock where there are too many combinations to solve. But can it be done.

This novel is an excellent example of the inverted detective story, a modern form that R. Austin Freeman is credited with inventing. You know from the beginning who the guilty party is, but watching Dr. Thorndyke figure it out is amazing. And watching the perpetrator think that he is getting away with his crime, while watching Dr. Thorndyke close in on him is well-done literary irony. The fun comes not from being baffled, but from watching Thorndyke’s mind at work and obser...

Originally written in 1907, „The Red Thumb Mark” opens the series by R. Austin Freeman featuring Dr. Thorndyke, who is a sort of Sherlock-Holmes type character. A single fingerprint is found at the scene of a crime. When the police are able to identify that fingerprint, the case seems closed. But Dr. Thorndyke, the detective/barrister/medical doctor who takes on defense of this suspect, thinks he can disprove the prosecution’s case, based on that same fingerprint. It does n...

Mr. Pottermack, wrongly convicted for forgery of checks, has escaped from jail, made his fortune in the US and come back to England to find his fiance. The only one who is cleverer than Mr. Pottermack is Freeman’s detective, Dr. Thorndyke. In this novel, the sympathetic, engaging and enterprising Mr. Pottermack commits the perfect crime, only to discover that a perfect crime is the last thing in the world he wants. Then Mr. Pottermack comes up against the legendary Dr. John...

This is a delightful Thorndyke mystery full of suspicious happenings, like the ugly human head found in a box checked at a railway station cloakroom. Other peculiar things are afoot too. A rich American gentleman has come to London to make a claim for an earldom, based on some far-fetched „evidence.” His lawyers seem particularly unsavory. And there’s been a daring robbery of precious platinum, with a British vessel somehow implicated. The plot evolves around all these susp...

R. Austin Freeman was one of the best mystery writers ever and this book is one to prove it. Harold Monkhouse is a very sick man but no one including his doctor seems to know what is wrong with him. When he is found dead of arsenic poisoning, his brother demands an investigation and everyone in the household is a suspect. Who was behind this cruel death; the loving wife, Barbara; her friend, Madeline or Wallingford, the rather eccentric secretary? They all inherit something...

Richard Austin Freeman, the doyen of the scientific division of detective writing is best known for his character Dr. John Thorndyke. A close and careful investigator and the outstanding medical authority in the field of detective fiction, R. Austin Freeman not only tested the wits of the reader but also inspired many modern detective forensic methods. „Shuttlebury Cobb” is a completely different sort of book. In it Freeman demonstrates his sense of humor and whimsy as he f...

What would you do if your doppelganger were committing crimes and making the police believe you were the perpetrator? In Danby Croker’s case, he decides to retaliate! But that is only one of the problems besetting him in this set of interlinked stories. Given a job as an antique dealer, can he resist the temptations of earning some easy money through a bit of fencing and counterfeiting? And what on earth is he doing going round London dressed as a suffragette?! R. Austin Fr...

Dr.Thornedyke’s methods of detection are characterised by investigations of apparently irrelevant facts and lengthy explanations of his train of hypothetical reasoning. In this novel, Dr. Thorndyke’s ability to identify fish scales and rope material sets his investigation in motion. The crime is the murder of an aristocrat staged to look like a suicide. There are really two stories alternating, which eventually become one. We watch Dr. Thorndyke follow a thin and improbable...

R. Austin Freeman’s character Dr. Thorndyke is considered the first modern forensic scientist in literature. This is one of the oddities of detective fiction. The first part of this story is an „autobiography” of Thorrndyke’s lab assistant Polton. Polton, Dr. Thorndyke’s lab assistant and a servant has graced every Thorndyke mystery with his mechanical ingenuity, his sumptuous meals and teas, and his crinkly smile. The second part is a mystery tale, which builds on some of ...

John Gillum arrives in London from Australia apparently a wealthy man and then proceeds to cheerfully gamble his entire fortune away. During this period he cultivates the friendship of Mortimer, the bank official after meeting him at the scene of a murder near the bank. He mentions in conversation that he felt suicide was a very understandable option to someone who had lost everything. When Gillum’s body is found, the inquest duly returns a verdict of suicide and blackmail ...

John Osborne is a young gentleman who has left England for some, as of yet, unknown reason. He settles in Adaffia, an ends-of-the-earth type of town on the Gold Coast. Almost immediately he gets into a fight defending the only other white man in town, a drunken trader. And we see that Osborne is a tremendous fighter skilled at ju-jitsu, boxing, wrestling and strategy. These skills will come into play again and again, in a mutiny, a rebellion and other struggles with formida...

Second in the Dr. Thorndyke mystery series set in London around 1900. Thorndyke is a lawyer and medical doctor who reasons out mysteries. This involves a young doctor friend who Thorndyke hires as his assistant whose strange case involving a mysteries man and couple who are caring for him and an inheritance case brought to Thorndyke. A classic English mystery with the detective, Dr. Thorndyke, solving what appears to be two disparate mysteries. One is an apparent suicide wi...

In this tightly plotted novel, we follow the bizarre career of a man who loathes criminals. After Humphrey Challoner finds his wife killed by the bullet of a robber in his home, he vows to catch the man. Mr. Challoner is a wealthy savant, and he saved the fingerprints of the robber as well as some of the robber’s strange hair which Challoner’s wife had in her hand. For twenty years Humphrey hunts for the killer, in the process revenging himself on London’s criminals class i...

NAJWYŻSZY CZAS, BY ZWIERZĘTA WZIĘŁY SWÓJ LOS WE WŁASNE ŁAPY  Niewinne zwierzęta mają kłopot: temperatura rośnie, poziom wód się podnosi, ich pokarm znika. Ktoś musi wkroczyć i uratować te istoty walczące o przetrwanie. Ktoś musi zapobiec globalnej katastrofie. Tym kimś jest… Bractwo Zagrożonych.  Jeden supersilny NIEDŹWIEDŹ POLARNY. Jeden ŁUSKOWIEC z talentem technicznym. Jeden wyjątkowo sarkastyczny NARWAL. I ORANGUTAN z wielkim marzeniem.  Ci niezwy...

Helen Vardon narrates her own story and one in which Dr. Thorndyke barely features until the final chapters. Helen Vardon contracts to a marriage without full knowledge of the circumstances regarding her father’s financial status. This leads to a dastardly trail of intrigue and deception and ends in murder. Dr. Thorndyke appears at the eleventh hour but does he save the day? Dr. Thornedyke is left to piece together the clues in this enticing mystery. This novel is a departu...

„The Eye of Osiris”, published in 1911, was the second of R. Austin Freeman’s many Dr. Thorndyke mystery novels. Here the great expert in medical jurisprudence will encounter the mysteries of ancient Egypt – without ever leaving London. The cast of characters is rich in Egyptologists. A wealthy old man, John Bellingham, collector of Egyptian antiquities, has disappeared without a trace. His brother is also an Egyptologist, as is his niece and the lawyer who executed his wil...

In this novel, Dr. Thorndyke builds a card house of wild speculations to solve a perplexing murder case, astonishing all observers, including the police. The victim is Julius D ’Arblay, an artist highly skilled at the rare French art of making wax-work figures and portrait masks. D’Arblay has a beautiful daughter, which leads to a romance with a young Dr. Grey who discovers the father’s body and brings the case to Dr. Thorndyke’s attention. Before the end of the story, the ...

"When Rogues Fall Out” incorporates some wonderful conundrums to hoodwink and hinder the cleverest of crime readers. This book contains three interconnected stories. In the first, a respectable collector of antiques falls victim to temptation. In the second a police inspector is found dead in suspicious circumstances in a railway tunnel. This section includes an interesting „essay” on the early use of fingerprint evidence. The third is a classic locked room mystery where so...

The pioneering creator of the inverted detective story, R. Austin Freeman was a popular Edwardian author of novels and short stories featuring Dr. Thorndyke, a pathologist-detective. Freeman’s detective and mystery tales offered an innovative approach to the genre, selling thousands of copies on both sides of the Atlantic. Robert Hawke is a man on the run. After returning from business in London, he finds that a sworn enemy, Will Colville, has been shot dead and the murder ...