3.5*

Pretty good entry in the Dr. Thorndyke series even if I did spot the solution fairly early on. ( )

Mr Daniel Penrose has a vast and expensive collection of items, uninsured. Now he has failed to have returned from a trip and his home burgled. Though he may have been involved in a car accident that killed a female. Dr. Thorndyke is asked to find him, dead or alive, due to complications involving not making wills by the Penrose family.
Originally published in 1936
An entertaining mystery ( )

Pretty good entry in the Dr. Thorndyke series even if I did spot the solution fairly early on. ( )

A good example of Freeman's work at its best. It starts with a section introducing us to Penrose, the central character, a magpie collector of all sorts of items (valuable and otherwise), some of which may have been obtained by rather dubious methods. Thorndyke comes into the story when Penrose disappears under rather odd circumstances. As usual the learned doctor's extraordinary fund of information on diverse topics serves him well in determining Penrose's fate; in this case an archeological dig forms an important part of the investigation, which may serve as a clue to what has been going on for experienced readers. ( )