A locked room mystery is a sub-genre of detective fiction wherein a murder or other crime is apparently committed under impossible circumstances: no one could have entered or left the scene of the crime, and the death involved could not have been a suicide. Such stories normally follow other conventions of classic detective fiction, in that the reader is presented with the puzzle and all of the clues, and so encouraged to solve it before the solution is revealed in a dramatic denouement. Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centers upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. ... Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centers upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. ... Denouement, in literature, is the end part of a story after the climax. ...

Typically, a "locked room" in this narrow meaning of the phrase is a room in which a murder is committed. There are a limited number of suspects, some of them possibly even with a watertight alibi. But on closer inspection, it turns out that no one could possibly have perpetrated the murder, because at the time the murder was committed, there was definitely no way of entering or leaving the room unseen. The concept can be broadened to encompass the “sealed site” where the impossibility derives from the site being covered with virgin snow or sand with no trace upon it, or a crime committed in front of witnesses who do not understand or cannot explain what has occurred.

The prima facie impression almost invariably would be that the perpetrator has vanished into thin air. However, there is always a rational explanation for the apparently miraculous event. Look up prima facie in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

History

Even though the mystery or detective genre wasn't established until the 19th century and the 20th century, the apocryphal Biblical story of Bel and the Dragon has some similarities to locked room mysteries. Earlier still, in the 5th century BCE, Herodotus told the tale of the robber whose headless body was found in a sealed stone chamber with only one guarded exit. Honore de Balzac in La Comedie Humaine – Maitre Cornelius (1846) and Alexandre Dumas, père in Les Mohicans de Paris – La Visite Domiciliaire (1854) may also be said to have included locked room elements in their novels. However, the earliest modern example of this type of story is generally held to be Edgar Allen Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," which appeared in 1841. The story also contains Poe's statement of the "rules" of the locked-room mystery. Israel Zangwill’s seminal “The Big Bow Mystery” appeared in 1897 and included a locked-room lecture, a technique to be used much later by John Dickson Carr to great effect in The Three Coffins. Another notable early example, Le Mystère de la Chambre Jaune (The Mystery of the Yellow Room ) was written in 1908 by French journalist and author, Gaston Leroux. Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... Wikisource has original text related to this article: Bible, English, King James, Bel The tale of Bel and the Dragon is from chapter 14 of the Book of Daniel. ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 5th century BC started on January 1, 500 BC and ended on December 31, 401 BC. // The Parthenon of Athens seen from the hill of the Pnyx to the west. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac (May 20, 1799 - August 18, 1850), was a French novelist. ... The Human Comedy is a novel by William Saroyan. ... Alexandre Dumas, père, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (July 24, 1802 – December 5, 1870) was a French writer, best known for his numerous historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. ... Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809–October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, editor and critic. ... The Murders in the Rue Morgue is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1841. ... Time magazine, September 17, 1923 Israel Zangwill (February 14, 1864 - August 1, 1926) was a British-born Zionist and writer. ... The Four False Weapons (1948), 1961 Pan paperback edition. ... The Hollow Man (written in 1935) is a famous locked room mystery novel by John Dickson Carr (1906 - 1977). ... The Mystery of the Yellow Room is a locked room mystery crime fiction novel written by Gaston Leroux, first published in France in 1908. ... Gaston Leroux. ...

In the Golden Age of Detective Fiction (generally agreed to have been between 1920 and 1950), impossible crimes were mainly solved by brilliant amateur sleuths who were inexplicably given free rein by Scotland Yard and, to a markedly lesser extent, the New York Police Department; puzzling mysteries were solved by sheer reasoning and brain power. Such creators of famous Anglo-Saxon amateur detectives as Jacques Futrelle, Thomas and Mary Hanshew, G.K. Chesterton, Carolyn Wells, John Dickson Carr, C. Daly King and Joseph Commings turned out impossible crimes in vast quantities, as did Christianna Brand, Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Clayton Rawson and Hake Talbot to a lesser degree. Authors such as Nigel Morland and Anthony Wynne, whose output leaned more towards science-based detective stories, also tried their hand at impossible mysteries. The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of detective fiction in the 1920s and 30s (also see Golden Age). ... New Scotland Yard, London New Scotland Yard, it blowwsssss often referred to simply as Scotland Yard or The Yard, is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for policing Greater London (although not the City of London itself). ... The New York City Police Department (NYPD) , the largest police department in the United States, has primary responsibility for law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City. ... Jacques Heath Futrelle (April 9, 1875 - April 15, 1912), born in Pike County, Georgia, was an American writer. ... For the town of Chesterton in Cambridgeshire, see Chesterton (Cambridge). ... The Four False Weapons (1948), 1961 Pan paperback edition. ... Born in Malaya, Mary Christianna Lewis (a. ... Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, DBE (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), also known as Dame Agatha Christie, was an English crime fiction writer. ... Frederic Dannay (left), with James Yaffe (1943) Ellery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel (David) Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay (October 20, 1905–September 3, 1982) and Manford (Emanuel) Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee (January 11, 1905–April... Clayton Rawson (1906 - 1971) was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. ...

In France, Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, Gaston Boca, Marcel Lanteaume, Pierre Very, Noel Vindry and the Belgian Stanislas-Andre Steeman were other important impossible crime writers, Vindry being the most prolific with 16 novels. In their stories the Sûreté and other police forces seemed, if anything, even more inclined to stand aside in slack-jawed admiration than their Anglo-Saxon counterparts. Edgar Faure, later to become Prime Minister of France, was a not particularly successful contemporary. Little information is available about other continental sleuths of this period, though one suspects there must have been some notable German and Italian ones (we already know of one notorious Belgian.) Boileau-Narcejac is the name by which Pierre Boileau (Paris, 28 April 1906 - Beaulieu-sur-Mer, 1989) and Pierre Ayraud, aka Thomas Narcejac (Rochefort-sur-Mer, 3 July 1908 - Nice, 1998) wrote. ... Boileau-Narcejac is the name by which Pierre Boileau (Paris, 28 April 1906 - Beaulieu-sur-Mer, 1989) and Pierre Ayraud, aka Thomas Narcejac (Rochefort-sur-Mer, 3 July 1908 - Nice, 1998) wrote. ... Sûreté (French for surety but transliterated as safety or security(1)) is a term used in French speaking countries or regions in the organizational title of a civil police force. ... Edgar Faure, French statesman Edgar Faure (August 18, 1908 - March 30, 1988) was a French statesman. ...

During the Golden Age, English-speaking writers dominated the genre, but after the 1940s there was a general waning of English-language output. French authors continued into the 1950s and early 1960s, notably Martin Meroy and Boileau-Narcejac who joined forces to write several locked-room novels and also the psychological thrillers which brought them international fame, two of which were adapted for the screen as Vertigo and Diabolique. But the most prolific writer during the period immediately following the Golden Age was Japanese: Akimitsu Takagi wrote almost 30 locked-room mysteries, starting in 1949 and continuing to his death in 1995. Regrettably, only one, The Tattoo Murder Case, has so far been translated into English. The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949. ... // Recovering from World War II and its aftermath, the economic miracle emerged in West Germany and Italy. ... The 1960s Ashley Rocks! decadeHI refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ... Boileau-Narcejac is the name by which Pierre Boileau (Paris, 28 April 1906 - Beaulieu-sur-Mer, 1989) and Pierre Ayraud, aka Thomas Narcejac (Rochefort-sur-Mer, 3 July 1908 - Nice, 1998) wrote. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... // 1955 movie Les Diaboliques is a black-and-white film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (U.K. title = The Fiends) based on the novel Celle qui nétait plus by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. ... Akimitsu Takagi (高木 彬光 Takagi Akimitsu) is the pseudonym of Seiichi Takagi (高木 誠一 Takagi Seiichi, September 25, 1920 - September 9, 1995), a Japanese crime fiction writer. ...

Since the 1970s Bill Pronzini’s Nameless detective has solved many a locked-room puzzle, but the prize for the most prolific creator of impossible crimes must be Edward D. Hoch, whose signature detective is a country physician, Dr. Sam Hawthorne, and who has produced at least 115 impossibles. Even today, the current occidental masters of the genre, Hoch and the Frenchman Paul Halter, still feature gifted amateur detectives who use pure brainpower to solve their cases. The late Arthur Porges, while almost as prolific as Ed Hoch and also specialising in short stories, did not use a series detective and many of his stories tended towards the whimsical. The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ... Edward Dentinger Hoch (born February 22, 1930 in Rochester, New York) is a prolific American writer of detective fiction. ... Arthur Porges (born August 20, 1915) is a pulp magazine author of numerous short stories, most notably in the 1950s and 60s. ...

The Japanese writer Soji Shimada has been writing impossible crime stories since 1981 and has created 13 to date. The first, The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, is the only one to have been translated into English so far. From the limited sample available to English readers, the Japanese themes are far more grisly than those of the genteel Anglo-Saxons. Dismemberment is the preferred method in the aforementioned two stories, with, in one case, the incomplete bodies of six girls being scattered across Japan. Despite the gore, the norms of the classic detective fiction novel are strictly followed. Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centers upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. ...

The French writer Paul Halter, whose output of over 30 novels is almost exclusively locked room (or ‘chambre close’ as they say over there), has been hailed as the natural successor to John Dickson Carr. Although strongly influenced by Carr and Christie, his style is his own and he can stand comparison with anyone for the originality of his plots and puzzles and his atmospheric writing. A collection of ten of his short stories entitled The Night of the Wolf is now available in English. The Four False Weapons (1948), 1961 Pan paperback edition. ...

Examples

The following are examples of "impossible" or "locked-room" crimes:

• The victim is seen walking alone in the middle of a snow-covered street. A voice is heard to threaten him, and a shot rings out. An examination of his body shows the shot was fired from close range, but no killer is to be seen and no other footprints are found on the scene. The Hollow Man (U.S. title: The Three Coffins)
• A man is found with his throat cut on a rock in the middle of a stretch of sand wet from the receding tide. The post mortem establishes he must have died shortly before being found, yet the occupants of a fishing boat less than 100 yards away swear they saw nobody. Have His Carcase
• The murderer is seen entering a room by a witness, but when the room is opened only the corpse of the victim is to be found. The Hollow Man
• A man volunteers to spend the night in an attic room reputedly haunted by the spirit of a woman previously stabbed to death there in impossible circumstances. The door is sealed. When the seals are broken, a complete stranger lies there dead from stab wounds and the other has vanished. La Quatrieme Porte
• A man is found dead, and his wife dying, in a room locked from the inside. She had been able to call for help after shots were heard. There is no gun in the room and a search reveals no other person present. Six Crimes Sans Assassin
• A man is stabbed to death in a summer house to which every access route is guarded and in which no weapon is to be found. The Oracle of the Dog
• A horse and buggy vanish in a covered bridge. Their tracks can be seen going in to the bridge, but none come out on the other side. The Problem of the Covered Bridge
• The audience is allowed to inspect the magician’s cabinet from all sides before he steps inside to perform his vanishing trick and the curtain descends. When the curtain goes up again, the magician is still in the cabinet – strangled. Death by Black Magic
• Two people are found shot to death at point-blank range inside a room locked on the inside. No gun is found in the room, and no bullets are found in either body. See the True Crime section.

For a detailed and comprehensive historical review of the field, together with descriptions of over 2000 novels and short stories featuring impossible crimes, consult Robert Adey’s exhaustive bibliography Locked Room Murders (1979 and 1991) which is the definitive work on the subgenre. The Hollow Man is a famous locked room mystery novel by the English writer John Dickson Carr (1906-1977), published in 1935. ... The Hollow Man (written in 1935) is a famous locked room mystery novel by John Dickson Carr (1906 - 1977). ... Have His Carcase is a 1932 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her seventh featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and her second novel in which Harriet Vane appears. ... The Hollow Man (written in 1935) is a famous locked room mystery novel by John Dickson Carr (1906 - 1977). ...

French-speaking readers may consult Chambres Closes, Crimes Impossibles, edited by Soupart, Fooz and Bourgeois or, for a more detailed analysis of a more limited number of works, Roland Lacourbe’s 99 Chambres Closes.

Japanese-speaking enthusiasts may enjoy An Illustrated Guide to the Locked Room 1891-1998 ( text by Alice Arisugawa and illustrations by Kazuichi Isoda) which contains summaries of 40 novels and short stories, 20 of which are Anglo-Saxon classics – the other 20 being Japanese classics from 1924 to the present day. A striking feature of the book is the double-page graphic explanation of each problem.

Authors and works

The acknowledged master of the locked-room subgenre was John Dickson Carr, who also wrote as Carter Dickson. His novel The Hollow Man is considered by many to be the finest locked room mystery novel of all time — although Carr himself names Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room as his favourite. The Hollow Man gives an explicatory recipe for crime writers: Chapter 17 of the book consists of a theoretical digression entitled "The Locked-Room Lecture". In it, Dr Gideon Fell (the detective) gives an extensive explanation of how the murderer is able to deceive everyone else (at least until the riddle is finally solved). How, for example, Fell asks, can the perpetrator create the impression of a hermetically sealed chamber when in fact it is not? What means are there of tampering with a door so that it seems to be locked on the inside? This is just one of the answers -- and, as it happens, the most simple one -- given by Fell: The Four False Weapons (1948), 1961 Pan paperback edition. ... John Dickson Carr (November 30, 1905 _ February 27, 1977) was a prolific American-born author of detective stories who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson, and Roger Fairbairn. ... The Hollow Man (written in 1935) is a famous locked room mystery novel by John Dickson Carr (1906 - 1977). ... Gaston Leroux. ... The Mystery of the Yellow Room: Extraordinary Adventures of Joseph Rouletabille, Reporter (in French Le mystère de la chambre jaune) is one of the first locked room mystery crime fiction novels. ... The Hollow Man (written in 1935) is a famous locked room mystery novel by John Dickson Carr (1906 - 1977). ...

"... An illusion, simple but effective. The murderer, after committing his crime, has locked the door from the outside and kept the key. It is assumed, however, that the key is still in the lock on the inside. The murderer, who is first to raise a scare and find the body, smashes the upper glass panel of the door, puts his hand through with the key concealed in it, and finds the key in the lock inside, by which he opens the door. This device has also been used with the breaking of a panel out of an ordinary wooden door." For the Figure of speech, see Ellipsis (figure of speech). ...

There are 6 other categories of locked-room as expounded by Dr. Fell. Clayton Rawson in Death from a Top Hat describes 9. Anthony Boucher in Nine Times Nine and Derek Smith in Whistle Up the Devil are two other authors to offer a comprehensive overview of locked-room methods. The reader is warned: while these lectures may well be erudite and educational in their own right, their true purpose in each case is to divert attention from the method actually used in the book! Clayton Rawson (1906 - 1971) was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. ... Anthony Boucher (August 21, 1911 - April 29, 1968) [1] was an American science fiction editor and writer of mystery novels and short stories. ...

Classic specimens of the genre include:

• John Dickson Carr's The Hollow Man (1935), The Crooked Hinge (1938), The Case of the Constant Suicides (1941), and He Who Whispers (1946)
• Carter Dickson's The Plague Court Murders (1934), The White Priory Murders (1934), The Ten Teacups (1937). and The Judas Window (1938)
• Anthony Boucher’s Nine Times Nine (writing as H.H.Holmes) (1940)
• Christianna Brand’s Death of Jezebel (1948)
• Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (1934), Murder in Mesopotamia (1936), Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938); and And Then There Were None (1939)
• Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (1980)
• Alan Green’s What a Body (1949)
• Peter Lovesey’s Bloodhounds (1996)
• Ngaio Marsh’s Death of a Fool (1956) (UK title: Off With His Head)
• Ellery Queen's The Chinese Orange Mystery (1934), The Door Between (1937) and The King is Dead (1952)
• Clayton Rawson's Death from a Top Hat (1938)
• Dorothy L. Sayers’ Have His Carcase (1932)
• Soji Shimada’s The Tokyo Zodiac Murders (1981)
• John Sladek’s Black Aura (1974), and Invisible Green (1977)
• Derek Smith’s Whistle Up the Devil (1953)
• Akimitsu Takagi’s The Tattoo Murder Case (1948)
• Hake Talbot's Rim of the Pit (1944)
• Israel Zangwill's The Big Bow Mystery (1892)
• Gaston Leroux’s Le Mystere de la Chambre Jaune (1908)
• Pierre Boileau’s Le Repos de Bacchus (1938) and Six Crimes Sans Assassin (1939) - which contains no less than 6 impossible murders; Thomas Narcejac’s L’Assassin de Minuit (1945) and La Mort est du Voyage (1948); Boileau-Narcejac’s Les Magiciennes (1957) and L’Ingenieur Aimait Trop Les Chiffres (1959).
• Paul Halter’s La Quatrieme Porte (1987); Le Cercle Invisible (1996); and Les Sept Merveilles du Crime (1997) in which Monsieur Halter baffles his readers with an astonishing 7 impossible crimes. Three of his short stories: “The Call of the Lorelei,” “The Tunnel of Death,” and “The Night of the Wolf” have been published in English in EQMM.
• Noel Vindry’s La Maison Qui Tue (1932), La Bete Hurlante (1934) and A Travers les Murailles (1937)
• Margery Allingham's "The Border-Line Case" (1937)
• Many of G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories, notably "The Secret Garden", "The Invisible Man," "The Wrong Shape," "The Oracle of the Dog," "The Dagger with Wings" and "The Miracle of Moon Crescent"
• Most of Joseph Commings’ 33 short stories featuring Senator Banner, notably: “The X Street Murders,” “Death by Black Magic,” “Hangman’s House” and “Fingerprint Ghost”. A collection of his stories has recently been published undet the title “Banner Deadlines”
• Many of Edward D. Hoch’s stories, including “The Problem of the Covered Bridge,” “The Witch is Dead,” “The Flying Fiend”, “The Leopold Locked Room”, and “The Tomb at the Top of the Tree.” One Ed Hoch story has appeared in EQMM every month since May 1973.
• William March’s “The Bird House” (1954)
• Edgar Allen Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841).
• Melville Davisson Post's "The Doomdorf Mystery" (1918)
• Robert van Gulik's The Chinese Gold Murders (1952) and "The Red Tape Murder" (1958)
• Larry Niven's Gil 'the ARM' Hamilton stories: Death by Ecstasy (1968), ARM (1975), and The Patchwork Girl (1980)
• Gilbert Adair's The Act of Roger Murgatroyd (2006) is an evocation of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Speckled Band (1892) and "The Man with the Twisted Lip" (1891).
• Surender Mohan Pathak's Dhamki (The Threat) and Kanoon ka Challange (The Challange from the law) ;(Sunil Series)

The Four False Weapons (1948), 1961 Pan paperback edition. ... The Hollow Man (written in 1935) is a famous locked room mystery novel by John Dickson Carr (1906 - 1977). ... The Crooked Hinge is a novel (1938) by detective novelist John Dickson Carr, often counted among the greatest mysteries of the so-called Golden Age. ... The Case of the Constant Suicides, first published in 1941, is a detective story by John Dickson Carr. ... He Who Whispers is a novel (1946) by detective novelist John Dickson Carr. ... John Dickson Carr (November 30, 1905 _ February 27, 1977) was a prolific American-born author of detective stories who also published under the pen names Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson, and Roger Fairbairn. ... Anthony Boucher (August 21, 1911 - April 29, 1968) [1] was an American science fiction editor and writer of mystery novels and short stories. ... Born in Malaya, Mary Christianna Lewis (a. ... Agatha Mary Clarissa, Lady Mallowan, DBE (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), also known as Dame Agatha Christie, was an English crime fiction writer. ... Murder on the Orient Express (London: Collins, 1934) also called Murder on the Calais Coach (New York: Dodd Mead, 1934) is a 1934 novel by Agatha Christie. ... Murder in Mesopotamia (published in 1936) is a detective novel by Agatha Christie. ... Hercule Poirots Christmas (published in 1938), also known as Murder for Christmas and A Holiday for Murder, is an Agatha Christie mystery novel featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. ... And Then There Were None (also known as Ten Little Indians and originally as Ten Little Niggers) is a detective novel by Agatha Christie first published in 1939. ... Umberto Eco (born January 5, 1932) is an Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa) and his many essays. ... The Name of the Rose, a novel by Umberto Eco, is a murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327. ... Peter Harmer Lovesey was born in 1936 in Whitton, Middlesex. ... Ngaio Marsh DBE (April 23, 1895 - February 18, 1982), born Edith Ngaio Marsh was an author and theatre director from New Zealand. ... Frederic Dannay (left), with James Yaffe (1943) Ellery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel (David) Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay (October 20, 1905–September 3, 1982) and Manford (Emanuel) Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee (January 11, 1905–April... Clayton Rawson (1906 - 1971) was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. ... Dorothy Leigh Sayers (Oxford, 13 June 1893 – Witham, 17 December 1957) was a renowned British author, translator, student of classical and modern languages, and Christian humanist. ... Have His Carcase is a 1932 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her seventh featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and her second novel in which Harriet Vane appears. ... John Thomas Sladek (December 15, 1937 - March 10, 2000) was an American science-fiction author. ... Time magazine, September 17, 1923 Israel Zangwill (February 14, 1864 - August 1, 1926) was a British-born Zionist and writer. ... Gaston Leroux. ... Boileau-Narcejac is the name by which Pierre Boileau (Paris, 28 April 1906 - Beaulieu-sur-Mer, 1989) and Pierre Ayraud, aka Thomas Narcejac (Rochefort-sur-Mer, 3 July 1908 - Nice, 1998) wrote. ... Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine is a monthly fiction digest magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction. ... Margery Louise Allingham (1904-1966) was born in London and attended The Perse High School for Girls in Cambridge, before returning to London and the Polytechnic for Speech-Training. ... Gilbert Keith Chesterton (May 29, 1874–June 14, 1936) was an influential English writer of the early 20th century. ... Father Brown is a fictional detective created by English novelist G. K. Chesterton and who stars in five volumes of in total 48 short stories, later compiled in five books. ... Edward Dentinger Hoch (born February 22, 1930 in Rochester, New York) is a prolific American writer of detective fiction. ... Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine is a monthly fiction digest magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction. ... William March (born William Edward Campbell September 18, 1893 in Mobile, Alabama) was an American World War I soldier, short-story writer and novelist cited as being the unrecognized genius of our time. His innovative writing style is characterized by a deep compassion and understanding of suffering. ... Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809–October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, editor and critic. ... The Murders in the Rue Morgue is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1841. ... Laurence van Cott Niven (born April 30, 1938 Los Angeles, California) is a US science fiction author. ... Gilbert Gilgamesh Hamilton is a fictional character in the Known Space universe created by Larry Niven. ... Death by Ectasy is a short story in the Known Space universe by Larry Niven. ... ARM is a story in Known Space by Larry Niven. ... Flatlander is a term used in Larry Nivens Known Space series, initially to describe one who has never left Earth. ... Gilbert Adair (born December 29, 1944) is an author, film critic, and journalist who won the Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize for his book A Void which is a translation of the French book La Disparition by Georges Perec. ... The Act of Roger Murgatroyd: An Entertainment is a whodunit by Gilbert Adair first published in 2006. ... Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (May 22, 1859 - July 7, 1930) is the British author most famously known for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction. ... The Adventure of the Speckled Band is one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. ... The Man with the Twisted Lip, one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the sixth of the twelve stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ...

Radio, television and film

• In the 1940s and '50s John Dickson Carr wrote a series of radio plays for the BBC’s Appointment with Fear, and subsequently for CBS’ Suspense series. Recordings of these plays are readily available on CD and the transcripts of many can be found in two collections: The Door to Doom and The Dead Sleep Lightly, both edited by Douglas G. Greene.
• Blacke's Magic featured a magician who used his skills to solve seemingly magical events.
• Jonathan Creek, not a magician himself but a designer of magic tricks, featured in a BBC UK television series in which almost every episode featured an impossible crime.
• Banacek was an American television series about an investigator specializing in locked-room thefts and other seemingly impossible mysteries.
• The TV series Monk (starring Tony Shalhoub) featured several locked room puzzles.
• Other television series have contained locked-room episodes:
  • Murder, She Wrote: episode entitled "We're Off to Kill the Wizard"
  • CSI: season 3 episode 13, "Random Acts of Violence", season 7 episode 16, "Monster in a Box",
  • Psych:episode entitled "Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Piece").
  • Dalziel and Pascoe: episode entitled "Houdini's Ghost".
  • Columbo: episode entitled "Columbo Goes to the Guillotine".
• The movie Flightplan is a variation on the mystery.

The Four False Weapons (1948), 1961 Pan paperback edition. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion... CBS is one of the largest radio and television networks in the United States. ... Blackes Magic was a short-lived TV show about a magician, Alexander Blacke (played by Hal Linden) who, with some help from his father Leonard (Harry Morgan), solve mysteries that got in the way of their performances. ... Jonathan Creek is a mystery television series produced by the BBC and written by David Renwick. ... Banacek (part of the NBC Mystery Movie series of the 1970s) was a short lived light hearted detective TV series on NBC from 1972 to 1974. ... Monk is an Emmy Award winning television show about the obsessive-compulsive private detective Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub) who also suffers from at least 103 phobias. ... Tony Shalhoub (Arabic: ‎, transliteration: ) (born as Anthony Marcus Shalhoub on October 9, 1953) is a three-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe-winning American television and film actor. ... Murder, She Wrote is a long-running television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher. ... CSI may stand for: Crime Scene Investigation, a term for forensics CSI: Crime Scene Investigation , a popular television show about forensic scientists CSI: Miami, a spin-off show of the above CSI: NY, another spin-off of the above CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (computer game), a spin-off game CSI... This article is about the TV show. ... Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel (usually known as Andy) and Detective Sergeant (later Detective Inspector) Peter Pascoe are two fictional Yorkshire detectives featuring in a series of novels by Reginald Hill that became a BBC television series, also named Dalziel and Pascoe. ... Columbo. ... Flightplan is a 2005 American film directed by Robert Schwentke and starring Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Erika Christensen and Sean Bean. ...

Pulp magazines

The pulp magazines in the 1930’s often contained impossible crime tales, dubbed weird menace, in which a series of supernatural or science-fictional looking events is eventually explained rationally. Notable practitioners of the period were Fredric Brown, Paul Chadwick and, to a certain extent, Cornell Woolrich, although these writers tended to avoid the private eyes that many readers today associate with pulp fiction. For further information on the subject, consult Mike Grost’s Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection. Weird menace is the name given to a sub-genre of horror fiction that was popular in the pulp magazines of the 1940s and 1950s. ... Fredric Brown (October 29, 1906, Cincinnati – March 11, 1972) was a science fiction and mystery author. ... Paul Chadwick was a pulp magazine author who wrote many stories under his own name and various pseudonyms. ... Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich (December 4, 1903 - September 25, 1968) was an American novelist and short story writer. ...

Comic books/graphic novels

Quite a few comic book impossible crimes seem to draw on the ‘weird menace’ tradition of the pulps. However, celebrated writers such as G.K. Chesterton, Arthur Conan Doyle, Clayton Rawson and Sax Rohmer have had their works adapted to comic book form. In 1934, Dashiell Hammett created the comic strip Secret Agent X9, illustrated by Alex Raymond, which contained a locked-room episode, albeit a rather feeble one. For the town of Chesterton in Cambridgeshire, see Chesterton (Cambridge). ... Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a Scottish author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and the adventures of Professor Challenger. ... Clayton Rawson (1906 - 1971) was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. ... Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward (February 15, 1883 - June 1, 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. ... Samuel Dashiell Hammett (May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. ... Alex Raymond (October 2, 1909- September 6, 1956) was an American comic strip artist, best known for his work on Flash Gordon. ...

French-speaking culture has long respected the comic book as a form of art in its own right, and it should come as no surprise that there are many comic books which feature impossible crimes. No less a figure than Tintin himself has tackled a locked-room mystery in Le Sceptre d’Ottokar. The many adventures of the journalist Ric Hochet are replete with impossible crimes, for example: L’Assassin Fantome, Les Spectres de la Nuit, and La Nuit des Vampires. Tintin and Snowy (Tintin et Milou) are world travellers and inseparable friends in The Adventures of Tintin. ...

Manga also has its locked-room adherents, such as the series Detective Conan written by Gosho Aoyama, which appears in English as Case Closed; notable locked-room issues are #3, #6, #7. A similar series, Kindaichi Case Files, features a locked room mystery in almost every story. Many of these are original, ingenious and meticulously explained; early examples are The Opera House Murders, Death TV and Smoke and Mirrors. Manga )   is the Japanese word for comics and print cartoons. ... Poster for Countdown to Heaven, the fifth Detective Conan movie Case Closed, known in Japan as Detective Conan (名探偵コナン, Meitantei Konan), is a detective manga and anime series by Gosho Aoyama (青山 剛昌), published in Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine. ... Gosho Aoyama ), born Yoshimasa Aoyama ), is a manga writer born June 21, 1963 in Daiei, Tottori Prefecture, Japan. ... Serialized in Shonen Sunday Weekly Comic 漫畫周刊 Neoz Original run 1994 – No. ... Kindaichi Case Files ) is a serialized mystery manga series about a high school student who has an uncanny knack for solving murders. ...

True crimes

Let us examine Bencolin’s thesis in the light of a number of unexplained incidents in real life:

Alfred Russel Wallace described events occurring in the Baltic in 1844 thus: “During the disturbances at the Cemetery of Ahrensburg in the island of Oesel, where coffins were overturned in locked vaults, and the case was investigated by an official commission, the horses of country people visiting the cemetery were often so alarmed and excited that they became covered with sweat and foam. Sometimes they threw themselves on the ground where they struggled in apparent agony, and, notwithstanding the immediate resort to remedial measures, several died within a day or two. In this case, as in so many others, although the commission made a most rigid investigation and applied the strictest tests, no natural cause for the disturbances was ever discovered.” Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS (January 8, 1823 – November 7, 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist. ... Map of the Estonian archipelago (Saaremaa and Hiiumaa) Saaremaa (Swedish and German Ösel) is the largest island (2673 km²) belonging to Estonia. ...

George Colvocoresses, captain of the USS Saratoga during the American Civil War was, according to his biography, mysteriously murdered in Bridgeport, Connecticut on June 3, 1872 while on his way to New York. According to his great-great-grand-daughter, however, his insurers later alleged that his death was a suicide, as the bullet wound he suffered was conveyed at close range through his heart, without the bullet penetrating his outer garments. It remains unexplained why, if this were the case, he would choose the busiest time of day on a busy street, nor why his shirt remained tucked in his trousers after death. George Musalas (Colvos) Colvocoresses, naval officer and commander of the Saratoga during the American Civil War[1] adopted son of Alden Partridge. ... Six United States Navy ships have borne the name Saratoga, after the important Battle of Saratoga in the American Revolutionary War. ... Combatants United States of America (Union) Confederate States of America (Confederacy) Commanders Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee Strength 2,200,000 1,064,000 Casualties 110,000 killed in action, 360,000 total dead, 275,200 wounded 93,000 killed in action, 258,000 total...

Herr Konrad was a merchant in Berlin in the 1880’s. His wife and five children were found dead in their cellar. The ponderous cellar door had no keyhole or any space around the molding, and was securely bolted on the inside. There was not the slightest aperture anywhere and the door fitted so tightly around the frame that a piece of paper could not have been passed through any crevice. However, the examining magistrate, using a powerful lens, eventually found a barely discernible hole just above the bolt on the inside of the door. There was no corresponding hole on the outside, but he found a small spot where the paint seemed fresher. Inserting a heated hatpin through the hole on the inside, he pushed out a hole in the exact centre of the painted spot. A piece of horsehair and a slight film of wax were found attached to the hatpin. Berlin is the capital city and one of the sixteen states of the Federal Republic of Germany. ...

Konrad had bored a tiny hole through the door above the bolt, looped a piece of horsehair over the bolt's knob, and slipped the two ends through the hole. By pulling upwards on the bolt-knob until the horsehair loop was disengaged, he was able to withdraw the horsehair through the hole, which he then filled up with wax and painted over... on the outside only. Konrad was executed; it was said he got the idea from a mystery novel. (K. Bernstein, "Der Merkwürdige Fall Konrad.")

According to a report in the The New York Times, March 10 and 11, 1929, Isidore Fink, of 4 East 132nd Street, New York City, was in his Fifth Avenue Laundry on the night of March 9, 1929 with the windows closed and door of the room bolted. A neighbor heard screams and the sound of blows (but no shots) and called the police who were unable to get in. A young boy was lifted through the transom and was able to unbolt the door. On the floor lay Fink with two bullet wounds in his chest and one in his left wrist, which was powder-marked. He was dead. There was money in his pockets, and the cash register had not been touched. No weapon was found. The man had died instantly, or almost instantly. The New York Times is a newspaper published in New York City by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. ... Nickname: Big Apple, Gotham, NYC, City That Never Sleeps, The Concrete Jungle, The City So Nice They Named It Twice Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs The Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island Settled 1676 Government  - Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area...

There was a theory that the murderer had crawled through the transom. But to do so he would have had to be no bigger than a small boy and would have had to leave the same way, as the door was bolted. Another theory had the murderer firing through the transom, but Fink's wrist was powder-burned, indicating that he had not been fired at from a distance. More than two years later, Police Commissioner Mulrooney, in a radio-talk, called this murder, in a closed room, an "insoluble mystery." The crime was said to have inspired William March’s “The Bird House” and Ben Hecht’s “The Mystery of the Fabulous Laundryman.”

On the 16th of May 1937, Laetitia Toureaux was found stabbed to death in an otherwise empty 1st class compartment of the Paris Metro. The subway train had left the terminus, Porte de Charenton, at 18h 27 and had arrived at the next station, Porte Dorée, at 18h 28. Witnesses at both stations swore nobody was seen getting in or out of the compartment, and witnesses in both adjacent compartments swore that nobody had tried to enter the one where Mlle. Toureaux's body was found. The murderer had one minute and twenty seconds at his disposal. Neither the method nor the murderer was ever discovered.

In 1979, Morton Conroy, a well-known Long Island barbeque manufacturer and his wife were found shot to death at point-blank range inside a room locked on the inside. Not only was no gun found in the room, but no bullets were found in either body.

It transpired that a maid who had been hired several months earlier had a brother who had died a slow and agonizing death following the explosion of a Conroy barbeque. She had taken her revenge and staged the locked-room to challenge the police, who quickly discovered the special tweezers she had used to lock the door after removing the gun from the room. The disappearance of the bullets was a far more ingenious effort, however. She had fabricated the bullets from pieces of meat and bone, honing the bone into a bullet shape and packing it and the attached meat into a shell case. At point-blank range, the bone pierced the victim's heart and shattered into tiny pieces, and the meat was dispersed into the surrounding flesh where it became practically invisible. The technique was later used in a fictional locked-room mystery published in the UK and the US.

External links

• Mike Grost’s Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection
• S.-A. Steeman
• Pierre Very
• Oesel Cemetery
• George Colvocoresses
• Laetitia Toureaux
• Morton Conroy