Showing results by author "R. Austin Freeman" in All Categories

In their first case together, "scientific investigator" Dr. John Thorndyke and his assistant, Dr. Jervis, work to clear young Reuben Hornby, accused of stealing a parcel of diamonds from his uncle's safe - and of leaving behind him a bloody thumbprint. Can Thorndyke prove that the new science of fingerprints is not quite the magic bullet that the authorities believe and clear his young client? And in the meantime, can he frustrate the attempts against his own life by some ingenious unknown adversary?

This third collection of vintage detective stories includes tales by authors like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, R. Austin Freeman, and Emile Gaborioux.

Peerless medical jurist Dr. John Thorndyke unravels nine more tales of greed, deceit, theft, and murder—including the sinister meaning behind a pickpocket's discarded plunder; a man terrorized by a vengeful ghost; a young wife accused of poisoning her older husband; a body concealed beneath the floor of a cottage; and the case of an unknown criminal mastermind and a strong room with an impossibly complex lock...

Seven stories of mystery and adventure from R Austin Freeman; including an audacious theft from London's National Gallery; the sudden self-confidence of a normally timid curate; a very remarkable funeral; a ghostly lawyer's repentance; a lucky find for a rural bricklayer; and two investigations for the celebrated forensic detective Dr. John Thorndyke...

Valuable diamonds are missing, and the thumbprint of one Reuben Hornby is discovered in some blood at the bottom of the safe from where they were taken. An open and shut case, surely. Or is it? For reasons known only to himself, Doctor John Thorndyke has some doubts about the evidence. But to prove the innocence of a young man he must make his case in open court through the use of the latest Edwardian science. Will Dr. Thorndyke succeed, or will the case of the red thumb mark prove to be not only his first case but also his last?

The Magic Casket describes a classic case for Dr. Thorndyke. It tells the story of an ordinary and apparently quite worthless metal casket, which conceals a mysterious secret which nearly costs a young woman her life.

While acting as a locum in London, young Dr. Strangeways is called to treat a woman following a violent attack by her drug-addled husband. A year later, as he begins a new practice in Rochester, he encounters the same woman again; but Mrs. Frood is now in hiding from her husband, who is actively searching for her in the area. And then, abruptly, she disappears into the evening fog, and the items she was carrying begin to turn up near the river—but there is no sign of a body.

Dr. Strangeways meets the only woman he has ever really cared for, the hermit-like yet mysterious Angelina Frood, a striking young actress stalked by many demons. Tragedy strikes and the good doctor will do anything to solve the mystery. Following a chance encounter, he begins a correspondence with the famous Dr. Thorndyke, hoping that the medico-legal hybrid, a metaphorical centaur or merman, with a doctor's head and a lawyer's tail, can solve the case.

When her beloved father is threatened with imprisonment over misappropriated trust funds, Helen Vardon agrees secretly to marry the man who holds her father's fate in his hand, to save both her father and herself from poverty and social disgrace. But the marriage merely precipitates a terrible personal disaster, and a series of events involving death and blackmail, which puts Helen herself under suspicion of murder. Can Dr. Thorndyke unravel the mystery in time to save her?

Mr Marcus Pottermack, an ingenious and meticulous gentleman, of quiet habits, is in a desperate situation: wrongfully convicted of fraud, he escaped from prison and established a new life, only to find himself in the clutches of a ruthless blackmailer. With no recourse to the law, Pottermack can see no way out—until a happy discovery within the walled garden of his home offers the means to rid himself of his tormentor forever.

A man apparently sends an incriminating letter to his solicitor, by the simple mistake of placing it into the wrong envelope, and then he abruptly disappears—this, immediately following a sailing trip from Sennen Cove to Penzance with an old friend, the last person known to have seen the missing man alive. But when Dr. John Thorndyke agrees to investigate the disappearance on behalf of the man's wife, he soon begins to question the circumstances and to suspect a more sinister outcome...

The Assyrian Rejuvenator, published in 1907, is one of R. Austin Freeman's novels written under the name Clifford Ashdown and the first to feature well-known protagonist Dr. Thorndyke—a medical-legal forensic investigator. In this tale, inflated claims about the powers of an expensive elixir put private investigator Romney Pringle in pursuit of a ruthless con man. The trickster has reason to believe that his customers won't complain, but Pringle sets out to destroy the crooked business.

Mr. John Bellingham, amateur Egyptologist, abruptly goes missing, leaving behind a strangely vexatious will that cannot be executed without proof or presumption of death. Mr Bellingham's family are left virtually penniless, and under suspicion of his murder. Two years later, young Dr. Paul Berkeley in the course of his duties befriends Mr. Bellingham's younger brother, and the latter's beautiful daughter, and takes their problem to his old friend and mentor the famous medical jurist Dr. John Thorndyke. Can Thorndyke determine what really became of John Bellingham?

In another of Freeman's revolutionary "inverted" detective stories, celebrated forensic investigator Dr. John Thorndyke examines the case of a man found dead in a cave at Margate, and the curious absence of the money lender attempting to make an insurance claim on the dead man's life.

As Christmas approaches, Mr. Percival Bland finds his criminal enterprises unraveling. Fortunately, though, his plan of escape requires little beyond a set of human bones and a quantity of shin of beef. But will his scheme deceive the great forensic investigator Dr. John Thorndyke?

Nine more cases of theft and murder for the great "scientific investigator" Dr. John Thorndyke. Including a woman harassed over a Japanese casket of dubious artistic merit; an allegation of murder where the victim has already been cremated; a Suffragist accused of theft and murder; a man found drowned in a ditch, and a woman found with her throat cut; the grizzly contents of a salesman's sample box; a mysterious death and a missing ornament; and a man blown to pieces in an explosion.

Richard Austin Freeman (1862-1943) was a British writer of detective stories, mostly featuring the medico-legal forensic investigator Dr. Thorndyke. Freeman used some of his early experiences as a colonial surgeon in West Africa in his novels. The Case of the White Footprints is a murder mystery set in Margate. A lady has been found dead in her room in a boarding house.

Introducing Dr. John Thorndyke and his friend Mr. Jervis. Together the sleuths solve through scientific means murders and mysteries, using logic and material evidence and Dr. Thorndyke's indispensable little green case.

This is Freeman’s third mystery featuring pathologist-detective Dr John Thorndyke. Whilst presenting a new invention for increasing the efficiency of gas-buoys with his laboratory assistant Polton, Thorndyke is dragged into a mystery involving an elderly seafaring man who has gone missing in the fog.

During the last part of the nineteenth century, the detective story took off as a popular genre as literary magazines vied with each other to draw in readers with gripping page-turners by the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton, Guy Boothby and Wilkie Collins. This collection brings together some of the great detectives of the Victorian era, from the master sleuth himself, Sherlock Holmes, to the mild mannered Father Brown, to the feisty J. G. Reeder.