The Penrose Mystery by Austin R. Freeman

FREEMAN, R. Austin. The Penrose Mystery. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1936.

First edition of Freeman’s seventeenth novel featuring forensic investigator Dr John Evelyn Thorndyke.

After the eccentric collector of antiquities, Daniel Penrose, mysteriously disappears, Dr Thorndyke is summoned to investigate.

British writer Richard Austin Freeman is credited with inventing the inverted detective story, a narrative style where the crime and its perpetrator are revealed at the outset, with the subsequent plot focusing on the detective’s efforts to unravel the mystery. As a colonial surgeon, Freeman drew on his own experiences in crafting his novels. His Dr Thorndyke stories often incorporate authentic yet arcane scientific details, such as those related to tropical medicine and toxicology.

Octavo, pp. 317; near fine; blue cloth, lettered in black to front cover and spine, upper edge stained blue, with the original printed dust jacket (spine ends lightly sunned, extremities a little rubbed, jacket spine sunned).