The Silent Bullet

by Arthur Reeve, Leslie S. Klinger (Editor)

Overview

"A collection that might have been called CSI: 1912."—Kirkus Reviews

The seventh book in the esteemed Library of Congress Crime Classics, an exciting new classic mystery series created in exclusive partnership with the Library of Congress. This short story collection features twelve tales of intrigue and suspense, starring Craig Kennedy, the "American Sherlock Holmes."

New York City, early 1900s.

Craig Kennedy, a university professor who uses science to help catch criminals, investigates crimes in and around NYC boroughs featuring deaths by apparent-but-inexplicable means. These highly imaginative crimes include spontaneous combustion and vengeful spirits, along with less fatal crimes involving kidnapping, safe-cracking, and a missing fortune in diamonds. With his impressive knowledge, friend Walter Jameson (his own Watson!), and use of cutting-edge technology of the day, Kennedy cracks each case using unorthodox yet entertaining means.

Arthur B. Reeve's Craig Kennedy stories were so popular in his time that he went on to publish twenty-six books featuring the professor, who also appeared in comic strips and a number of films. Readers of classic crime fiction will delight in this collection of twelve short stories. Fans of Sherlock Holmes will especially appreciate Kennedy's insistence on logic and science over brawn.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781464215001
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Series:	Library of Congress Crime Classics
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	1,051,402
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

LESLIE S. KLINGER is the two-time Edgar® winning editor of New Annotated Sherlock Holmes and Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s. He has also edited two anthologies of classic mysteries and, with Laurie R. King, five anthologies of stories inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon. Klinger is the series editor of Library of Congress Crime Classics, a partnership of the Library of Congress and Poisoned Pen Press/Sourcebooks. He is a former Chapter President of the SoCal Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America and lives in Malibu, California.

Table of Contents

Foreword v

Introduction vii

Craig Kennedy's Theories 1

I The Silent Bullet 4

II The Scientific Cracksman 27

III The Bacteriological Detective 51

IV The Deadly Tube 74

V The Seismograph Adventure 96

VI The Diamond Maker 124

VII The Azure Ring 147

VIII "Spontaneous Combustion" 171

IX The Terror in the Air 197

X The Black Hand 223

XI The Artificial Paradise 249

XII The Steel Door 277

Reading Group Guide 306

Further Reading 308

About the Author 310

Editorial Reviews

02/22/2021

First published in 1912, this entertaining collection of 12 stories by Reeve (1880–1936) features Craig Kennedy, a New York City university chemistry professor, whose journalist friend and Watsonian narrator, Walter Jameson, recommends his services to the NYPD. In the baffling title tale, a stock broker drops dead in the middle of a business meeting from a gunshot despite no one present seeing a firearm or hearing a shot. “Spontaneous Combustion” is especially clever, offering a logical explanation as to how a man ended up dead in his home, burnt from the waist up, with the only copy of his will missing. Another highlight is “The Terror in the Air,” centered on two fatalities during the test of a new flying machine, whose inventor hopes Kennedy can prove his device was sabotaged. Never mind that the characters and puzzles aren’t on a par with R. Austin Freeman’s Dr. Thorndyke stories from the same era. Those interested in early forensics will want to check this out. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

2021-01-13
Twelve reprinted adventures starring scientific detective Craig Kennedy in a collection that might have been called CSI: 1912.

As Leslie S. Klinger’s Introduction notes, Kennedy, a professor of chemistry who presumably works at Columbia University, was not the first purely scientific detective, but together with his contemporaries Dr. Richard Thorndyke and Luther Trant, he paved the way for modern forensic investigators. Most of these dozen cases follow an identical formula: A client or friend brings Kennedy and his amanuensis, journalist Walter Jameson, an impossible crime to solve; he asks pertinent questions, performs mysterious experiments, and unmasks the thief or killer in a melodramatic denouement. The most impressive feature of the stories is their dazzling array of riddles, from how someone shot a victim in a crowded room without making a sound to how a young couple were struck down together without a mark before they could wed. Their most limiting factor is their science, which in hindsight must walk a narrow path between the all-too-predictable (modern readers being much more knowledgeable than their original audience) and the discredited (Klinger’s conscientious notes to three stories pronounce their affordances “nonsense,” “far-fetched,” and “science fiction”). When Reeve (1880-1936) departs from this formula to show Kennedy dropping mescaline and using electroshock to revive a dead suspect, the results are more sensational than persuasive. So this collection, a cornerstone for historical completists and nostalgia buffs, is unlikely to appeal to anyone else.

A tonic reminder from a century ago that nothing dates more rapidly than state-of-the-art forensics.

Kirkus Reviews