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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...

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...

Angelina Frood, a striking young ex-actress, has gone missing and her new friend Dr. Strangeways, a good-hearted young doctor and the narrator of the story, is determined to find out what has happened and along the way enlists the assistance of Dr. Thorndyke. The local police Sergeant is hot on the trail, as items of clothing and jewellery belonging to Angelina are discovered. There’s serious trouble ahead, but fortunately Dr. Thorndyke, the great medico-legal expert, will ...

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 ...

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...

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...

Dr. Thorndyke is the CSI of his day. Most of the book is taken up with the account of how an innocent man gets himself thoroughly entangled in what looks like the certainty that he will be hanged, either for the death of a man he saw only once, or amazingly, for his own death! But, of course, Dr. Thorndyke is able to extricate him from this awful situation and triumph yet again. This is the amazing story of a polite, artistic gentleman who, by a series of mistakes, accident...

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 ...

Narrated by Robert Anstey, who is acting as Thorndyke’s counsel as Jervis is away in America. He walks right into a murder scene, attracted by the screams of a beautiful young woman. The dead man is a harmless old bachelor who collects objects of arcane appeal. Several pieces of inscribed jewelry are missing. It’s a strange sort of burglary perpetrated by clumsy amateurs – who nonetheless got clean away. Dr. Thorndyke takes on the case and enlists Anstey as his sidekick. An...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare was written by G.K. Chesterton and published in 1908. Ostensibly about a secret policeman investigating anarchists, it becomes a surreal and philosophical novel. It is a metaphysical thriller, and a detective story filled with poetry and politics. Gabriel Syme is a poet and a police detective. Lucian Gregory is a poet and a bomb-throwing anarchist. Syme infiltrates a secret meeting of anarchists and becomes ’Thursday’, one of the seven ...

This novel is considered to be one of Conrad’s major works and in subject matter is close to The Secret Agent. It is also full of conflict about the historical failures of revolutionary movements and ideals. Razumov is a career-motivated young man, unwillingly trapped in a political situation. As he travel to Geneva (from St. Petersburg), brings hope that he is going to go back to his normal life, while he is getting more involved in politic, by felling in love with the sis...

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional consulting detective in London 1880-1914 created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Holmes, master of disguise, reasoned logically to deduce clients’ background from their first appearance. He used fingerprints, chemical analysis, and forensic science. This volume contains the final set of twelve Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. The stories are not in chronological order, and the only character...

The eighth issue features the usual assortment of stories and non-fiction. These are the next to last of the series of short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about Sherlock Holmes. Some are set before the Great War, the last takes place in 1914. Holmes is retired and refused to take on any more cases, preferring to live out his years in a small rural village. „His Last Bow” is a collection of seven Sherlock Holmes stories (eight in some editions) by Arthur Conan Doyle, plu...

The collection includes the famous stories about Sherlock Holmes, the brilliant detective. Sherlock Holmes, the common man, often lying around, rereading favorite books, the best detective in England. Sherlock Holmes, possessor of an incredible mind, and strength, will surprise you not once, not giving you time to realize the complexity and mystery of the crime and the quickness of its opening. There are 4 Novels and 43 Short Stories. When Sherlock Holmes begins investigati...