Great Cases of the Thinking Machine

by Jacques Futrelle

For the world’s most brilliant criminologist, every mystery has a solution

His name is Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, but to the newspapers he is known as “The Thinking Machine.” Slender, stooped, his appearance dominated by his large forehead and perpetual squint, Van Dusen spends his days in the laboratory and his nights puzzling over the details of extraordinary crimes. What seems beyond comprehension to the police is mere amusement to the professor. All things that start must go somewhere, he firmly believes, and with the application of logic, all problems can be solved.

Whether unraveling a perfect murder, investigating a case of corporate espionage, or reasoning his way out of an inescapable prison cell, Van Dusen lets no detail elude his brilliant mind. In this highly entertaining collection, featuring many of the stories that made The Thinking Machine a national sensation, ingenious criminals and ruthless villains are no match for an egghead scientist.

Genres: Mystery

170 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Jacques Heath Futrelle (1875-1912) was an American journalist and mystery writer. He is best known for writing short detective stories featuring the "Thinking Machine", Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen. He worked for the Atlanta Journal, where he began their sports section; the New York Herald; the Boston Post; and the Boston American. In 1905, his Thinking Machine character first appeared in a serialized version of The Problem of Cell 13. In 1895, he married fellow writer Lily May Peel, with whom he had two children. While returning from Europe aboard the RMS Titanic, Futrelle, a first-cabin passenger, refused to board a lifeboat insisting his wife board instead. He perished in the Atlantic. His works include: The Chase of the Golden Plate (1906), The Simple Case of Susan (1908), The Thinking Machine on the Case (1908), The Diamond Master (1909), Elusive Isabel (1909), The High Hand (1911), My Lady's Garter (1912), Blind Man's Bluff (1914).

Reviews

[Janis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t always understand the ending.

[MadeMarion · Rating 4 out of 5]

NB: This is the book I read, but not the same edition. Mine has a blue cover, but in all other particulars this is a match for the ISBN and date of publications. I'm putting this down to Dover Publications being slightly eccentric.

TW: This collection features stories from 1906-1908. They're not purple prose by any means, but they can reflect the attitudes of their time period.

I liked this book, which might be too simple a statement, but as a collection of short stories that's about the long and the short of it. Futrelle's Thinking Machine loves puzzles and disregards petty details (how did the murder victim come by a crucial piece of information? Who knows! It's not relevant to the puzzle at hand, and thus, Professor S.F.X. Van Dusen declines to investigate.) On the one hand, it's often refreshing in the story not to have to belabor the victim's final moments or last errors, but on the other as a modern reader, the brevity can be jarring. This most recent read-through, I erred on the side of 'refreshing,' but I remember being irked at the spoilery omissions in previous readings.

The tone of each short story is brisk and efficient, which is helped along by the efficiency of its central character (and probably helped sell papers, when the stories were published serially.) They've got an energy to them with carries the story along, and I liked the way Futrelle slid in the tiny details that often cracked the case. This is a pleasant collection of mysteries, some murderous and some not, and the Thinking Machine's disdain for humanity can yield surprising results and the use of the telephone does make it feel rather modern (the style is very much Doylesian, so the verve and willingness to use technology at all was really rather fun!)

All in all, if you've got a free afternoon and don't mind some logic puzzles to pass the time, this is an excellent introduction to the forty-five stories Futrelle wrote about his Thinking Machine.

[Pamela Mclaren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jacques Futrelle has presented 13 cases in this book, all with a master detective called "the Thinking Machine," AKA Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen.

Now if you are thinking he would be slightly unpleasant, similar in behavior as Sherlock Holmes, or eccentric, like Hercule Poirot, you would be wrong on both accounts. This supposedly well-known scientist is majorly unpleasant and a whole lot eccentric.

But my major gripe with the tales are that author Futrelle never quite explains how the amateur detective comes up with his solution and they are usually pretty esoteric. Don't even try to solve these cases — because it isn't going to happen — except in the case of the final story, which is really a thriller. And in that case, Van Dusen comes up with a clever answer, but not the real one.

I'm glad that I read the book and would like to perhaps try a novel by Futrelle, but I can't say that I actually enjoyed these clever stories — because they are clever, its just getting to the solution that made the frankly, a drag.

[Ronald · Rating 4 out of 5]

read some time in 1991