Harlan Ellison is the author of a plethora of short stories, scripts, essays, and reviews. He has written or edited more than seventy-five books, including Slippage, Angry Candy, and Dangerous Visions. His numerous awards include Edgars, Hugos, and Nebulas. He lives in California with his wife, Susan. [Edit review] [Delete review]

This irascible genius, this diminutive egghead scientist, known to the world as “The Thinking Machine,” is no less than the newly rediscovered literary link between Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe: Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, who—with only the power of ratiocination—unravels problems of outrageous criminous activity in dazzlingly impossible settings. He can escape from the inescapable death-row “Cell 13.” He can fathom why the young woman chopped off her own finger. He can solve the anomaly of the phone that could not speak. These twenty-three Edwardian-era adventures prove (as The Thinking Machine reiterates) that “two and two make four, not sometimes, but all the time.” [Edit review] [Delete review]

“When I was a young man I read, thoroughly enjoyed, and long remembered ‘The Problem of Cell 13.’ Now, like a brisk morning breeze, it returns. I say that’s swell.” —Tony Hillerman [Edit review] [Delete review]

Chapter 1

Dressing Room "A"

That strange, seemingly inexplicable chain of circumstances which had to do with the mysterious disappearance of the famous actress, Irene Wallack, from her dressing room in a Springfield theater during a performance, while the echo of tumultuous appreciation still rang in her ears, was one of the most fascinating problems which was not purely scientific that The Thinking Machine was ever asked to solve. The scientist's aid was enlisted in this singular mystery by Hutchinson Hatch, reporter.

"There is something far beyond the ordinary in this affair," Hatch explained to the scientist. "A woman has disappeared, evaporated into thin air in the hearing, almost in sight, of her friends. The police can make nothing of it. It is a problem for a greater mind than theirs."

Professor Van Dusen waved the newspaperman to a seat and himself sank back into a great cushioned chair in which his diminutive... [More...] [Edit review] [Delete review]