Book report: The Thinking Machine by Jacques Futrelle

I know: "don't judge a book by the cover" but I seem to remember books if they have distinctive covers

I remember buying a copy of this book when I was in grade school.  I don't know what I did with it - it must be another item that is right next to my grade school class pictures.  But I read the three stories within more than once:

The Problem of Cell 13

The Case of the Flaming Phantom

The Mystery of the Silver Box

The main character, Prof. Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, was as unforgettable as Sherlock Holmes.  He was a smartie, held numerous degrees including being a medical doctor, and unlike Holmes, the Professor did his investigations as a sideline, leaving a lot of the leg work to his friend, Hutchinson Hatch, a newsman.  I wonder if this might have influenced later writers like Rex Stout with his Nero Wolfe character where Archie Griffin does the outside work ?  Anyway, I suspect if "the Thinking Machine" ever gets popular again he will undoubtedly be termed to be "on the spectrum"  -  kind of irritated and short with others but strangely always willing to "mansplain" the  solution to the mystery.  I suppose one reason why Scholastic selected these stories for kids was that they were mysteries where murder wasn't necessarily involved.

The author, Jacques Futrelle, was said to have been a fan of Mr. Holmes / Conan Doyle.  Alas, Mr. Futrelle was on the Titantic and died, giving up his seat in the lifeboat next to his wife, May, so that another might survive, pretty heroic.

But I didn't know that about the author in the 1960s, I was just was fascinated by the stories, especially The Problem of Cell 13.  Unlike the early part of this 21st century, the early part of the 20th century was a time of great change in the world.  Flight, electric power, radio, automobiles, Einstein's theories all hit in a major way during that first decade of the 20th century.  And the new technology often played a part in "the Thinking Machine" stories, including electric lights, electric boats, Morse code and on and on.

Anyway, I enjoyed re-reading these stories as an adult.  They are available in multiple places in various e-book formats with an internet search:  "the thinking machine" futrelle pdf   

This link leads to a text file of a large collection of Thinking Machine stories including the three that were included in the Scholastic book mentioned above:

https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks11/1100831.txt 

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm