Jacques Futrelle

Jacques Futrelle (1875–1912) was an American journalist and writer born in Georgia who worked for newspapers in Richmond and Boston. While on the Boston American he created Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, The Thinking Machine, a scientist who solves crimes by pure logic, and the first story about him, The Problem of Cell 13, appeared in 1905 and is among the most anthologized detective stories ever written. Futrelle left journalism to write fiction full time and had published several novels when he sailed home from Europe on the Titanic in April 1912. He put his wife into a lifeboat and went down with the ship at thirty-seven.