Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike L
Flynn, glad to hear you share my liking for R. Austin Freeman. I thought The Red Thumb Mark was brilliant.
But some of his later short stories don't live up to the promise. They come across as Sherlock Holmes clones, with the narrator being more like Dr Watson than Dr Watson. But they're still enjoyable in their own way.
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I'm not sure I'd agree with that characterisation, Mike. Dr Thorndyke is much more what today we'd call a "forensic scientist" than he is a traditional detective. He solves problems primarily by scientific investigation. I think that many of his later books are actually the best; the solutions to the problems certainly surprised me!
It's best, if you can, to read the Dr. Thorndyke books in their published order, because there's a fair amount of continuity between them, with characters from earlier books appearing, and developing, in later ones. My 7-volume collection arranges them in chronological order.
I'm about half-way through proof-reading the final volume of the collection, so probably best to wait for the proofed version before reading that.