Sensacja
R. Austin Freeman
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 prosecutions case, based on that same fingerprint. It does not take Dr. Thorndyke to figure out who the criminal is. It is up to Dr. John Thorndyke, and his new assistant Dr. Jervis to prove the young mans innocence before hes found guilty and hanged. The mystery in this wonderful detective tale is who the lovely heroine is in love with. The answer may surprise you.
The Secret Agent. A Simple Tale
Joseph Conrad
Mr Verloc, the secret agent, keeps a shop in Londons Soho where he lives with his wife Winnie, her infirm mother, and her idiot brother, Stevie. Verloc is part of a group of anarchists who believe in overthrowing the government and who also function as somewhat ineffective terrorists. The group mainly produces anarchist pamphlets called F.P. (The Future of the Proletariat) and hold private meetings among themselves. The agent is secretly employed by a foreign embassy, probably Russia, to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. The Secret Agent is a a story set earlier (1886) telling an allegory of terrorists and anarchists based in Edwardian England. The complicated plot is masterful, the prose sophisticated, and the characterizations full and engrossing. The death of an innocent is heartrending. Joseph Conrad is often considered the best writer of the 19th century.
R. Austin Freeman
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 Thorndykes mind at work and observing his scientific methods which include, in this case, geology, petrology, psychology, marine biology, handwriting analysis, and chemical analysis. The crime takes place in a yacht off the coast of Penzance in Cornwall, where a circle of friends are vacationing. The victim is a boorish, overbearing, dishonest brute with money. The murderer is a likable, gentlemanly, talented artist of modest means. Every one likes the murderer, including Dr. Thorndyke.
The Spy. A Tale of the Neutral Ground
James Fenimore Cooper
Inspired by accusations of venality leveled at the men who captured Major Andre (Benedict Arnolds co-conspirator, executed for espionage in 1780), Coopers novel centers on Harry Birch, a common man wrongly suspected by well-born Patriots of being a spy for the British. Even George Washington, who supports Birch, misreads the man, and when Washington offers him payment for information vital to the Patriots cause, Birch scorns the money and asserts that his action were motivated not by financial reward, but by his devotion to the fight for independence. Peopled with memorable characters, some of them real life heroes like George Washington, The Spy by James Fenimore Cooper is a great blend of fact and historical fiction, constructed on a magnificent scale.
R. Austin Freeman
First, there are two seemingly unrelated events: the murder of a constable in pursuit of a diamond thief and the attempt to poison a potter by using arsenic. The connection lies in the presence of Dr. Oldfield, a Dr. Thorndykes former student, who happened to find the constable body and served as the consulting physician of the potter. Dr. Oldfield once again found a trace of murder: ashes of cremated human human body in the dustbin at the potters studio. The police tries to chase the supposedly real villain, but end up in vain. Facing with these puzzling events, Dr. Thorndyke has his own hypotheses. His inquiries results in the discovery of the real felon while the secret is concealed in the hideous figurine of a stoneware monkey. The Stoneware Monkey has everything that weve come to expect from a Thorndyke novel a highly complex and creative murder, a damsel in distress, telltale fingerprints, chemical analysis, brilliant theorizing by Thorndyke, faulty thinking by everyone else, and a dramatic surprise ending.
The Surprising Experiences of Mr. Shuttlebury Cobb
R. Austin Freeman
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 follows the strange and always comic adventures of the hero of the title who finds himself caught up by chance in the quest for a mysterious treasure. Charting a series of adventures set in many strange scenarios, Mr. Shuttlebury Cobb is led through the dark and twisted streets of London where he meets a highly gifted stranger, enters secret chambers, and finds a magic mirror. Cobb engages with a secret code and a castaway in a delightful collection designed to while away the hours.
John Buchan
London, May 1914. Europe is close to the First World War. Richard Hannay, a Scotsman raised in Rhodesia is living in London, and finds American Franklin Scudder at his door. Scudder is a photographer and free-lance spy and has information about a plot by the German spy ring, the Black Stone, to steal the British plans for war. Hannay later finds Scudder dead in his flat and decides he must carry on Scudders work. With both German spies and the police after, Hannay must solve the riddle of the thirty-nine steps alone.
John Buchan
The story re-introduces the reader to an older Richard Hannay, married and the father of a young son, living on a country estate. Our hero is pulled out of retirement by his old comrade, Bullivant, asking him to help track down three missing persons, taken so that the villain can, as well as furthering his craze for crime and stopping his activities being investigated, obtain complete mental control over his acolytes. After much deliberation, Hannay accepts the case and so begins the search for the missing three. Much of the story is a series of chases, following various clues, during which Hannay is once again forced to work against the ordinary police to maintain his secrecy. The Three Hostages is a haunting novel, given added poignancy by the subsequent history of the twentieth century.