The Cobb & Croker - Adventures Tales of an Amateur Sleuth and a Rogue. The Surprising Experiences of Mr. Shuttlebury Cobb and The Exploits of Danby Croker - R A Freeman

The chase is on! -Two collections of adventure in Edwardian London

Although R. Austin Freeman’s best- known character is the forensic sleuth, Dr. Thorndyke, the author penned several collections of crime and detection stories featuring other principal characters and this special Leonaur edition contains the adventures of two of them. Danby Croker as the anti-hero, a middle-class gentlemanly rogue and swindler who lives by his wits and who originally appeared within a 12-part magazine serial in The Red Magazine in 1911. Croker is no hardened criminal. Well mannered, he appreciates the finer things (such as antique furniture and art), and passes for a charming and cultured individual, but he also possesses mechanical and technical skills to take advantage of dim-witted or equally greedy marks. Featuring 12 interconnected stories, the narrative begins with a classic case of mistaken identity. Croker finds out that he has a criminal doppelgänger. Because the police mistake him for this notorious criminal, Croker is forced into a life of crime to survive on the fringes of Edwardian London. By contrast,Shuttlebury Cobb is a whimsical protagonist;a mild-mannered solicitor’s clerk living in London. In this comedic caper, Cobb does not seek danger, but stumbles into it by accident so he is targeted by criminals, repeatedly kidnapped, and wrongfully arrested. There are six short stories, all connected by a treasure hunt and a battle of wits between Cobb and his primary rival, a clumsy detective named Detective Sergeant Burbles. These two period works are brought together for good value and should appeal to readers of period crime and detection everywhere.

Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.