10 h 44 minAudiobook16 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the most revealing clue lies not at the crime scene, but in the hidden workings of the mind?
In Arthur B. Reeve’s The Dream Doctor, Craig Kennedy brings the laboratory into detective work. A university professor in New York, he treats crime as a problem to test. His instruments matter more than hunches, and his search for truth turns on what science can reveal.
These detective stories explore more than physical evidence. Dreams, nerves and the unconscious become possible sources of clues. Kennedy reaches for microscopes, chemical tests and delicate meters as Reeve puts the scientific ideas of his day to work. Plot and surprise drive the cases, with apparatus taking a leading role.
What you’ll discover
- A professor on the case Follow Craig Kennedy as he brings a scientist’s habits to the search for answers.
- Clues under the microscope Discover detective work that puts instruments and chemical tests ahead of instinct.
- The mind as evidence Explore stories where dreams and nerves offer another way to think about crime.
- New York’s scientific detective Enter the New York of the 1910s through cases shaped by laboratory science.
- A taste for surprise Enjoy early detective stories that favor moving plots and unexpected discoveries over fine style.
Who will love it
Readers who love clever detectives, gadgets and the early days of forensic science will find many quick puzzles here, each with a new instrument, a new setting and a fresh set of suspects.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A dream and a note start the month
- Poison hides in a beauty parlour
- A banker is besieged in his own vault
- A museum is haunted by a green curse
- Poisoned food and a drowned girl
- Thieves, a kleptomaniac and a vampire
- Bombs, drugs and a stolen submarine plan
- Ghouls in a cemetery and a man on death row
- What the cases add up to and how they are told
Who’s who
- Craig KennedyA university chemist who uses laboratory instruments to solve crimes, and who rests from one case by throwing himself into the next.
- Walter JamesonA newspaper reporter and Kennedy's roommate, who tells the stories and is ordered to follow Kennedy for a month.
- First Deputy O'ConnorA blunt police official who calls Kennedy in when a case defeats the regular detectives, and who is easily excited.
- Dr. LeslieThe city coroner, a man who brings Kennedy in on the first case and remains a steady ally.
- Mrs. MaitlandA tall, nervous woman whose husband dies on Broadway, troubled by dreams that her doctor has been studying.
- Captain ShirleyA retired navy officer who has built a submarine steered by wireless, and who fears his life's work is failing.
- District Attorney CartonA hard-driving prosecutor fighting the vice trust, who needs a frightened witness to testify before bombs silence him.
- Nella GodwinA small, determined woman living in sight of Sing Sing, who begs Kennedy to save her husband from the electric chair.
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 10 h 44 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 16 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear Le Docteur des rêves in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Le Docteur des rêves
by Arthur B. Reeve · 1914
Reporter Walter Jameson follows scientist Craig Kennedy for a month, and a new crime waits behind every door.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Dream Doctor is a linked set of detective cases by Arthur B. Reeve, written in the early twentieth century.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A dream and a note start the month
The month begins in the Star office, where the managing editor sends Walter Jameson home with a plain order. Follow Professor Craig Kennedy for thirty days and write down whatever happens. Jameson finds Kennedy reading a treatise by Dr. Freud of Vienna, and before he can finish explaining, the telephone rings. It is Dr. Leslie, the coroner, asking them to come to Municipal Hospital at once.
The dead man is Price Maitland, a broker. He was found reeling on Broadway that morning, and before an ambulance could arrive he could neither speak nor move a muscle. Hospital doctors tested for every drug they could name and found nothing. A typed note in his coat pocket, addressed to his wife Madeline, seems to say that he has chosen to end his life.
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What is The Dream Doctor about?
It is a book of linked detective cases in which Professor Craig Kennedy solves crimes with science. The reporter Walter Jameson is assigned to follow him for a month, so each case brings a new puzzle, a new suspect list and a new instrument.
Who is Craig Kennedy?
Kennedy is a chemistry professor at a New York university who works as a scientific detective. He uses the microscope, the telephone, wireless waves, X-rays and psychology to find clues. His friend Walter Jameson tells his adventures for the newspaper.
Why is the book called The Dream Doctor?
The title comes from the first case, where Kennedy uses the new psychology of Dr. Freud to read a widow's dreams. A suspect mocks him as a dream doctor in scientific disguise. The name suits his habit of treating clues as symptoms.
The author
Arthur B. Reeve
1880–1936 · American mystery writer
Arthur Benjamin Reeve (1880–1936) was an American journalist and writer. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and died in Trenton, New Jersey. He wrote detective stories featuring Craig Kennedy, beginning in 1910. His books include The Silent Bullet (1912) and The Dream Doctor (1914).
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