Introduction

Dr. Richard Austin Freeman MRCS LSA (11 April 1862 to 28 September 1943) was a British writer of detective stories, mostly featuring the medico-legal forensic investigator Dr. Thorndyke.

Literary Contribution

Freeman’s first Thorndyke story, The Red Thumb Mark, was published in 1907.

He 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). This invention has been described as Freeman’s most notable contribution to detective fiction.  Freeman used some of his early experiences as a colonial surgeon in his novels. Many of the Dr. Thorndyke stories involve genuine, but sometimes arcane, points of scientific knowledge, from areas such as tropical medicine, metallurgy and toxicology.

Military Career

During the First World War, he served as an induction physician and a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps and afterwards produced a Thorndyke novel almost every year until his death in 1943.