Richard Austin Freeman

A Classic Writer of  'Golden Age of Detection' English Mysteries

'We mustn't expect too much, Jervis,' said he; 'in fact we have no reason to expect anything. We are just looking over this jetsam as a matter of routine to note any facts that it may seem to suggest, without regard to their apparent relevancy or irrelevancy to our inquiry. You cannot judge the relevancy of an isolated fact. Experience has taught me, and must have taught you, that the most trivial, commonplace and seemingly irrelevant facts have a way of suddenly assuming a crucial importance by connecting, explaining or filling in the detail of later discoveries.'
-- The Stoneware Monkey

R. Austin Freeman (1862-1943) started his career as a Colonial Office doctor in West Africa, but was invalidated out having contracted blackwater fever (luckily not Ebola, otherwise we should never have had 40 years' worth of Dr John Evelyn Thorndyke novels!). Freeman's influence in the detective novel sphere was powerful beyond expectation, although it took many years for his reputation to develop. Thorndyke, while not the prototype (Holmes had his cigarette ashes, although in a very perfunctory way compared with JT), was the first 'real' scientific detective, combining vast knowledge of forensic medicine and examination of minutia (i.e., rat hairs, dust particles, etc.) with great erudition and dignity. These books were dry in style, fascinating in detail, and all pretty much according to a formula -- a young lawyer or doctor or other colleague (such as the Watsonian Jervis and Anstey) gets involved in some mysterious circumstances, calls on his old tutor JT, who hears out the tale with great urbanity and politeness, over port and cigars, and spots some hidden element about which he is 'close as an oyster', involves his ingenious assistant the 'crinkly faced' Polton in devising a scientific investigation, then makes all clear at the end, usually in a dramatic courtroom testimony. Dry as these stories sound, they are still fascinatingly readable, especially when delving into some obscure topic such as pond fauna, archeological anthropology, Egyptology, what have you. The characters are all convincing, often sympathetic even when they are villains, with at least one Dickensian eccentric in each book, although there is very little dramatic action apart from the mystification, the unravelling of the investigation, and an occasional surprise climax. Once one gets used to Freeman, it is usually easy to figure out who the culprit is, although not how he will be caught; in fact RAF pioneered the so-called 'inverted' detective story, where part one of the narrative describes the commission of the crime, including the identity of the felon, and part two is Thorndyke's investigation. This method of detective story exposition has been used effectively in many novels and short stories (Vickers, Berkeley, etc.), although it is not especially what one wants in a mystery novel.

• The Mystery of 31 New Inn (1905?) -- This was published originally as a short story, but was later expanded into a novel following the success of The Red Thumb Mark. It establishes the Freeman 'formula' with all its attributes. (For more on this book see this.)

• The Red Thumb Mark (1907) -- An essay in the new art of identification by fingerprints, and should be noted for that, although the subject is now well beyond cliché. (It has always been a puzzle to me why fingerprints were never noticed from ancient times by thinkers such as Aristotle.) The book is considered the first of the Thorndyke novels, but see the item above.

• *** The Eye of Osiris (1911) -- One of the first detective stories to utilize the rising fashion of Egyptology, but without the claptrap of Curse of King Tut. This is brilliantly done, with Thorndyke doing a suberb job of working out the complicated plot. The villain is very well presented too and is a real 'charmer' (not somebody you'd want to encounter, though) . It really is a classic of scientific detection.

• The Silent Witness (1914) -- ?

  Freeman did not publish any detective stories during the War. Who knows what he was involved in then. But few detective stories were published in that period; it was not like the second War where mystery stories were churned out in cheap paperback editions to keep 'our boys' amused while fighting Hitler.

• The Cat's Eye (1923) -- Rather poor effort by this author, a thriller rather than a mystery, and an overload of Freeman's worst faults. (For a fuller review see this.)

• * The Mystery of Angelina Frood (1924) -- A nicely done comedy with a mystery and some atmospheric elements. The setting in the city of Rochester is superb and has echoes of Dickens's Mystery of Edwin Drood. The subject is unusual for Freeman in that it involves wife abuse.

  <SPOILER> (to read, move cursor over green background)
  

  There is a very laughable premise in this book, which is why I call it a comedy, that is not very convincing; Freeman explains it away in a classic expert-witness court-room manner, although just intuitively most readers would not accept it as likely, especially for as perceptive an observer as the narrator. Angelina Frood, with whom the hero is in love, poses as a male clerk in a real estate office, and becomes the hero's best friend. How could he possibly not have recognized her? And Thorndyke's bizarre anatomy lesson about male and female body formations is a wonder of odd humor and misses out on the most prominent superficial difference.

  <SPOILER>

• * The D'Arblay Mystery (1926) -- Nice setting in the Highgate area of London and by the Regent's Canal near Camden Town, a lady in distress, somewhat more action than usual. Nice solution (even though everybody except Thorndyke behaves like an ignoramus -- these perceptive policemen and doctors see everything he does but totally lack any savvy for interpretation and come across as stupider, even, than the reader, who can smell a red herring far more easily than these cautious and professionally ethic folk). The plot involves a very nasty villain, and includes waxwork masks and other disguises.

• *** As a Thief in the Night (1928) A suberb and well-plotted mystery involving arsenic poisoning. The identity and motivation of the murderer is a genuine surprise, as is the actual murder method. Equally good are the digressions and red herrings supplied by this very clever killer. Thorndyke plays the role of Nemesis quite effectively -- one would not want this investigator on one's track!

• ** Mr Pottermack's Oversight (1930) -- An 'inverted' detective novel that ranks among Freeman's most interesting mysteries. Since it involves the murder of a particularly nasty blackmailer, one roots for the eponymous hero. A nice, if somewhat contrived, cat and mouse game, the main flaw being Dr Thorndyke's infallibility. There is a very fine section involving the 'planting' of a corpse that is worthy of a Hitchcock movie (as when Norman Bates disposes of the evidence in Psycho).

• Dr Thorndyke Intervenes (1933) -- While there is a sub-plot involving theft and murder, this is basically the story of a scam involving a claim to an Earldom. It is rather amusing, especially the crooked lawyer Mr Gimble, but on the whole the book is a journeyman Freeman.

• *** The Penrose Mystery (1936) -- One of his masterpieces. It involves one of Freeman's classic and characteristic eccentrics, someone with a crossword-puzzle wit, some interesting information about ancient long barrows (neolithic burial mounds), and for once lacks the nuisance of a distracting romance. The character of the pack-rat Penrose is very amusing.

• *** The Stoneware Monkey (1939) -- Contains a very cogent critique and satire of modern art (pottery) and its critics, whether the reader agrees or not; a very witty book. Has some nice eccentric characters, such as the humbug Bunderby, one of Freeman's specialties. The plot is also ingenious, with poisoning by arsenic and the destruction of a body in a pottery kiln. The Scotland Yard detective Inspector Blandy is a good foil to Thorndyke.

  RAF himself actually made the monkey statue that was used on the Dover book cover and frontispiece, and I think it looks fine, though not for one's top shelf. I wonder who has that thing now and whether it would be valuable if you could offer it for sale at a Mystery Convention. Whoever owns it, take it to Antiques Road Show!

• Mr Polton Explains (1940) -- ?

• The Unconscious Witness (1942) -- ?

• The Adventures of Romney Pringle (1902; not Thorndyke) -- A series involving a sort of gentleman con-man; published under the pseudonym Clifford Ashdown.

• John Thorndyke's Cases (1909) -- The first Thorndyke collection. I don't have this book, but many of the stories have been frequently anthologized and are thus well-known (e.g., 'Aluminum Dagger' and 'Moabite Cypher').

• ** The Singing Bone (1912) -- His famous collection pioneering the 'inverted detective story'. Three of them use this method: 'The Case of Oscar Brodsky', 'A Case of Premeditation', and 'The Echo of a Mutiny'. The other stories are straight detection.

• Dr. Thorndyke Investigates (1930) -- An anthology from the University of London Press that contains five representative stories, including 'The New Jersey Sphinx'.

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