The Red Thumb Mark

Richard Austin Freeman (1862–1943) was a British writer, author of detective stories about the forensic investigator Dr. Thorndyke—a series of 22 novels and 40 short stories. Freeman claimed that he invented the “inverted detective,” a direction in the detective genre where, unlike the traditional detective story, the criminal is known from the very beginning of the narrative. From the time the club was founded in 1930, the author was a member of the Detection Club.

Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke is a fictional detective by profession—doctor—who turned to forensic practice and became one of the first scientists of forensic medicine. His investigations are based on the method of collecting all possible data (right up to studying the pond snails in which the victim’s body was found). In murder cases, Thorndyke is often assisted by his colleague Christopher Jervis (usually acts as the narrator) and by the ever-resourceful laboratory assistant Nathaniel Paulton. Unlike many other amateur detectives and private investigators, Thorndyke has good relations with the police, despite the fact that he proved investigators wrong in many cases. Externally, Thorndyke is tall, athletically built, handsome, and intelligent. He was never married and has no children.