Richard Austin Freeman (1862- 1943) — known as R. Austin Freeman — was a British writer of detective stories, mostly featuring the medico-legal forensic investigator Dr. Thorndyke. He claimed to have invented the inverted detective story (a crime fiction in which the commission of the crime is described at the beginning, usually including the identity of the perpetrator, with the story then describing the detective's attempt to solve the mystery). Freeman used some of his early experiences as a colonial surgeon in his novels. A large proportion of the Dr. Thorndyke stories involve genuine, but often quite arcane, points of scientific knowledge, from areas such as tropical medicine, metallurgy and toxicology.
In this ebook:
John Thorndyke's Cases, 1909
The Mystery of 31 New Inn, 1912
The Red Thumb Mark, 1907
The Eye of Osiris, 1911
The Vanishing Man, 1911
The Uttermost Farthing, 1914