Material in the book looks forward and backward to other Freeman novels. It resembles The Penrose Mystery (1936) to come, in that the opening sections deal with a collector with a private museum in his house. An accident in the country followed by a hospital stay plays a role in both books. These events are as lucid and straightforward in When Rogues Fall Out as they are baffling and filled with mystery in The Penrose Mystery. It is as if Freeman had taken some of the events of the earlier novel, and filled them with mysterious twists. Both of these books are noteworthy among Freeman's later fiction, in having little in common with the material of his early trilogy of novels. Polton and his skill with mechanics plays a major role in both books. The country churchyard in Discovery and the barrow in Penrose play parallel roles.Both When Rogues Fall Out and Mr Pottermack's Oversight are very episodic in their construction. Each is a mosaic made up of many small sections, which are very diverse in their material. When Rogues Fall Out also recalls Mr Pottermack's Oversight in its concern with optical devices and photography. Some of the optical techniques employed in the earlier novel are put to new applications here as well. One of the devices Freeman has invented here anticipates modern security surveillance equipment. So Freeman was a pioneer here, as he was in his tales advocating police laboratories. Both When Rogues Fall Out and Mr Pottermack's Oversight are sunny, cheerful books. Despite their various crimes, they both radiate optimism and good nature. Perhaps because the reader understands all the events in these inverted stories, there is a lack of a sense of sinister, dark mysteries that oppress several later Thorndyke novels. Mr Pottermack, despite being a criminal, is a very sympathetic character. And only a small fraction of When Rogues Fall Out is from the murderer's point of view. Instead, more often we see two other cheap but completely non-murderous crooks, each of which has their comic angle. Indeed, the British title of the book seems well-chosen: When Rogues Fall Out. One wonders whether this is Freeman's original title; Dr. Thorndyke does not actually make any key discoveries in this book, and the dignified American title Dr. Thorndyke's Discovery seems arbitrary.Much of Mr. Pottermack's Oversight takes place outside, and is a culmination of Freeman's interest in landscape architecture. By contrast, When Rogues Fall Out is more of an indoors book, and shows the Golden Age interest in extravagant architecture. We see the victim's home, and a railway tunnel, as well as a country cottage and an auction house. There is a slight ambiguity in some of these settings between indoors and outdoors. The railway tunnel, while a massive human construction, is entered from outdoors, and the space underneath it partakes of some features of the outside. The scenes at the victim's house include the churchyard next door, also an outdoors if man made region. Both much of the house and the tunnel are underground regions; the book has a chthonic feel. The clock interior early in the book also maintains the imagery of hidden chambers and tunnels.