Before Kathy Reichs's Temperance Brennan and Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta, there was Dr. Thorndyke, the first ever fictional forensic scientist. The only evidence against young Reuben Hornby in a jewel theft is his thumb print smeared in blood. It is enough to convict him of the crime until physician Dr. John Thorndyke dares to ask and answer the question, Can a fingerprint be forged?"
"Before Kathy Reichs's Temperance Brennan and Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta, there was Dr. Thorndyke, the first ever fictional forensic scientist.The only evidence against young Reuben Hornby in a jewel theft is his thumb print smeared in blood. It is enough to convict him of the crime until physician Dr. John Thorndyke dares to ask and answer the question, Can a fingerprint be forged?""
"Before Kathy Reichs's Temperance Brennan and Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta, there was Dr. Thorndyke, the first ever fictional forensic scientist.The only evidence against young Reuben Hornby in a jewel theft is his thumb print smeared in blood. It is enough to convict him of the crime until physician Dr. John Thorndyke dares to ask and answer the question, Can a fingerprint be forged?""
Richard Austin Freeman (1862-1943) was a British writer of detective stories, mostly featuring the medicolegal forensic investigator Dr Thorndyke. He invented the inverted detective story and 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. His first stories were written in collaboration with Dr John James Pitcairn (1860-1936), medical officer at Holloway Prison and published under the nom de plume "Clifford Ashdown." His first Thorndyke story, The Red Thumb Mark, was published in 1907 and shortly afterwards he pioneered the inverted detective story, in which the identity of the criminal is shown from the beginning: some short stories with this feature were collected in The Singing Bone in 1912. His other works include John Thorndyke's Cases (1909), The Eye of Osiris (1911), The Vanishing Man (1911), The Mystery of 31 New Inn (1912), The Uttermost Farthing: A Savant's Vendetta (1913) and The Cat's Eye (1923).
The facts and figures contained in Mr. Singleton's evidence, including the very liberal estimate of the population of the globe, are, of course, taken from Mr. Galton's great and important work on fingerprints; to which the reader who is interested in the subject is referred for much curious and valuable information.
Before Kathy Reichs’s Temperance Brennan and Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta, there was Dr. Thorndyke, the first ever fictional forensic scientist. The only evidence against young Reuben Hornby in a jewel theft is his thumb print smeared in blood. It is enough to convict him of the crime until physician Dr. John Thorndyke dares to ask—and answer—the question, “Can a fingerprint be forged?” The first detective novel to engage in scientific technology, The Red Thumb Mark has become a classic for its use of real science and its introduction to the genre’s very first and greatest forensic scientist, Dr. Thorndyke. Described by Otto Penzler as “the greatest medico-legal detective of all time,” the tall, athletic, and handsome Dr. Thorndyke approaches crime solving firmly grounded in the disciplines and logic of medical science, making inferences from data collected at the scene of the crime instead of basing the investigation on the suspects’ motivations. First published in 1907, R. Austin Freeman’s tale set the stage for the forensic science detective novel we are so familiar with today, and it remains one of the greatest and most memorable of the genre. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
The first Dr. Thorndyke mystery story. Reuben Hornby is accused of stealing diamonds from the safe of his uncle-his employer and benefactor. The sole evidence-damning evidence at that-is a paper dropped by the robber, bearing a fresh and bloody thumbprint. The thumbprint of Reuben! Richard Austin Freeman (11 April 1862 - 28 September 1943) 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.
R. Austin Freeman (1862 - 1943) was a British author best known for writing detective fiction. Freeman's most famous works are centered around the fictional forensic investigator Dr. Thorndyke.
