Two from R. Austin Freeman!
We've just added two eBooks from R. Austin Freeman: The Red Thumb Mark and John Thorndyke's Cases, a pair of 
classic titles from the early master of the forensic mystery! The books chronicle the exploits of medical jurispractitioner Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke. The eBooks have been professionally proofread and formatted to ensure accuracy and readability on any device, and are accompanied by brand new introductions by Otto Penzler.
The Red Thumb Mark is the first novel to feature Dr. Thorndyke; in it, the doctor-turned-investigator hunts for clues in a case that appears to be open-and-shut. After a cache of diamonds is stolen from a shipping firm, the only evidence left is the thumbprint of the son of the firm's owner, left in a pool of blood. But when the son insists on his innocence, it's up to Thorndyke to find the truth.
John Thorndyke's Cases is a collection of short stories following the detective's work. Like The Red Thumb Mark, they show his forensic crime-solving method at work. When confronted with a new case, Thorndyke studies every possible bit of data from the crime scene before seeking out suspects. In most tales, he is assisted by his friend Christopher Jervis. Together they use science to tease obscured motives out of a dearth of clues.
R. Austin Freeman (1862-1943) was a British crime author, said to have invented the "inverted detective story," wherein the crime and perpetrator are described in full at the onset, and puzzled out by the detective in the pages that follow. Having worked as a colonial surgeon before beginning his career as an author, Freeman claimed to have conducted all of Thorndyke's investigative experiments himself. In 1964, the Thorndyke series served as the inspiration for a BBC program of the same name.
