Marking 100 years since publication, The Adventuress was the first full-length novel to feature ‘scientific detective’ Craig Kennedy, who was dubbed ‘the American Sherlock Holmes’ and the first fictional detective to use forensic science.

Who killed Marshall Maddox of Maddox Munitions, Inc., the inventors of the top secret telautomaton? Was his death retribution for a double life, or was it due to the covetousness of some schemer? Even Craig Kennedy is challenged by the diabolical scientific inventiveness and ruthlessness at the centre of the crime – and by Paquita, the mysterious adventuress . . .

Arthur B. Reeve (1880-1936) was a New York author and criminologist whose creation, the scientific detective Craig Kennedy, became famous as ‘the American Sherlock Holmes’. Reeve’s cutting-edge stories, newspaper serials and movies about Craig Kennedy made him the most popular detective writer of the era, and The Adventuress was his first full-length novel for Harper & Brothers, published in 1917 as part of the company’s centenary year celebrations.

This Detective Club classic is introduced by publisher David Brawn, who examines the rise and fall of Arthur B. Reeve, whose bestselling fiction was credited as introducing forensic science to real police work, yet 100 years later has been all but forgotten.

Reviews

‘Arthur B. Reeve is without question the greatest living author of scientific detective literature. Mr Reeve, as the creator of Craig Kennedy, has perhaps done more for the dissemination of science through the medium of detective stories than any other man alive. He has always kept within the strict bounds of science; the various instruments and apparatus which he describes in the detection of crime are real scientific instruments, and he has never used fictitious methods.' SCIENTIFIC DETECTIVE MONTHLY (1930)

About the author

Arthur B. Reeve (1880-1936) was a New York journalist whose stories, newspaper serials and movies made him the most popular American detective story author of the 1910s and 20s. His creation, the ‘scientific detective’ Craig Kennedy, was labelled ‘the American Sherlock Holmes’, and The Adventuress was his first full-length novel, published by Harper & Brothers in 1917, the company’s centenary year.