![]() Humphrey Jardine is making his way home after a long night of studying for his final qualifying exam. Overall, nicely done and another worthy addition to my British reading room library. You could read this one as a stand alone, but it's better if you start with the first book and read them in order to better understand the thinking process of Dr. The verbiage is somewhat archaic for modern readers, but character and plot development are both nicely done. If you like old-fashioned mystery stories, the Dr. Nothing is as it seems here, so the mystery element starts off strong and continues to keep the reader scratching his or her head throughout the book. There is a lot going on in this novel, but the strands all come together quite nicely and offer a mystery that will have you scratching your head. Thorndyke, but not before Jardine finds his life in danger, and not just once. His findings lead him into a very strange adventure which can only be solved with the technical expertise of Dr. The police can find no trace that the man was ever there, so Jardine takes it upon himself to examine the scene for clues. Jardine's troubles begin with a casual walk in Hampstead Heath (London), where he comes across the body of a man and runs to fetch the police, only to come back and find that the dead man has disappeared. In this installment, the action centers on one Dr Humphrey Jardine, who is the narrator of the story, and who himself is the focus of several strange events that happen to him just after he has finished medical school and begins his career as a physician. Thorndyke, a barrister, doctor, and all-around solver of intriguing mysteries. ![]() I am a huge fan of this series of mysteries, all written during the Golden Age of Mystery writing.Ī Silent Witness is Freeman's fourth full-length novel featuring Dr. He died in Gravesend on 28 September 1943. Thereafter he used some of his early experiences as a colonial surgeon in his novels.Ī 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. With the publication of 'The Singing Bone' (1912) hee 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). Within a few years he was devoting his time to full-time writing. His first published crime novel was 'The Adventures of Romney Pringle' (1902) and was a collaborative effort published under the pseudonym Clifford Ashdown. The first of the books in the series was 'The Red Thumb Mark' (1907). He became a writer of detective stories, mostly featuring the medico-legal forensic investigator Dr Thorndyke. On his return to England he set up an eye/ear/nose/throat pactice but in due course his health forced him to give up medicine although he did have occasional temporary posts and in World War I he was in the ambulance corps. It was critically acclaimed but made very little money. He wrote his first book, 'Travels and Life in Ashanti and Jaman', which was published in 1898. His time in Africa produced plenty of hard work, very little money and ill health, so much so that after seven years he was invalided out of the service in 1891. He married Annie Elizabeth Edwards in 1887 and they had two sons and after a few weeks of married life the couple found themselves in Accra on the Gold Coast where he was assistant surgeon. He became a medical trainee at Middlesex Hospital Medical College and was accepted as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was originally named Richard and later added the Austin to his name. Richard Freeman was born in Soho, London on 11 April 1862 and was the son of Ann Maria (nee Dunn) and Richard Freeman, a tailor.
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