9780307743961

The Most Complete Collection of Impossible Crime Stories Ever Assembled, with puzzling mysteries by Stephen King, Dashiell Hammett, Lawrence Block, Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, Dorothy L. Sayers, P. G. Wodehouse, Erle Stanley Gardner, and many, many more

THE BLACK LIZARD BIG BOOK OF LOCKED-ROOM MYSTERIES: An empty desert, a lonely ski slope, a gentleman’s study, an elevator car—nowhere is a crime completely impossible.

Edgar Award–winning editor Otto Penzler has collected sixty-eight of the all-time best impossible-crime stories from almost two hundred years of the genre. In addition to the many classic examples of the form—a case of murder in a locked room or otherwise inaccessible place, solved by a brilliant sleuth—this collection expands the definition of the locked room to include tales of unbelievable thefts and incredible disappearances. Among these pages you’ll find stories with evocative titles like “The Flying Death”, “The Man From Nowhere”, “A Terribly Strange Bed”, and “The Theft of the Bermuda Penny”, not to mention appearances by some of the cleverest characters in all of crime, including Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Georges Simenon’s Jules Maigret, Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op, and many more.

Featuring
• Unconventional means of murder
   • Pilfered jewels
   • Shocking solutions

Includes
• Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, the first detective story and the first locked-room mystery
   • Masters of the short story form: Edward D. Hoch, Ellery Queen, Carter Dickson, and Stanley Ellin

A VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD ORIGINAL

Otto Penzler is a two-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the editor of numerous anthologies, among them eight other Vintage Crime/Black Lizard anthologies, most recently The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries. He is the owner of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City.

THE BLACK LIZARD BOOK OF LOCKED-ROOM MYSTERIES

Table of Contents

Familiar as the rose in spring
The most popular and frequently reprinted impossible crime stories of all time

Edgar Allan Poe, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
Jacques Futrelle, "The Problem of Cell 13"
Wilkie Collins, "A Terribly Strange Bed"
Lord Dunsany, "The Two Bottle of Relish"
G.K. Chesterton, "The Invisible Man"
Melville Davisson Post, "The Doomdorf Mystery"
Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Speckled Band"

This was the most unkindest cut of all
Stabbing in a completely sealed environment appears to be the most common murder method

John Dickson Carr, "The Wrong Problem"
William Hope Hodgson, "The Thing Invisible"
James Yaffe, "Department of Impossible Crimes"
R. Austin Freeman, "The Aluminum Dagger"
Gerald Kersh, "The Crewel Needle"
Stephen King, "The Doctor’s Case"
Manly Wade Wellman, "A Knife Between Brothers"
Joseph Commings, "The Glass Gravestone"
Edgar Jepson & Robert Eustace, "The Tea Leaf"
Peter Godfrey, "The Flung-Back Lid"
John Lutz, "The Crooked Picture"
Carter Dickson, "Blind Man’s Hood"

Footprints in the sands of time
Is there a more baffling scenario than to find a body in smooth sand (or snow) with no footprints leading to or from the victim?

Edward D. Hoch, "The Man from Nowhere"
Fredric Brown, "The Laughing Butcher"
Michael Innes, "The Sands of Thyme"
Samuel Hopkins Adams, "The Flying Death"
A.E. Martin, "The Flying Corpse"
Vincent Cornier, "The Flying Hat"

And we missed it, lost forever
It is a fantasy for many people to disappear from their present lives. Some people disappear because they want to, others disappear because someone else wants them to. And objects—large objects—sometimes disappear in the same manner.

Hugh Pentecost, "The Day the Children Vanished"
Stanley Ellin, "The Twelfth Statue"
William Irish, "All at Once, No Alice"
Edmund Crispin, "Beware of the Trains"
H.R.F. Keating, "The Locked Bathroom"
Dashiell Hammett, "Mike, Alec and Rufus"
C. Daly King, "The Episode of the Torment IV"
Julian Hawthorne, "Greaves’ Disappearance"
Ellery Queen, "The House of Haunts"
J.E. Gurdon, "The Monkey Trick"
E.C. Bentley, "The Ordinary Hairpin"
Jacques Futrelle, "The Phantom Motor"
Edward D. Hoch, "The Theft of the Bermuda Penny"
Judson Philips, "Room Number Twenty-Three"

How easily is murder discovered
There are so many ways for the creative killer to accomplish the act

Lynn Wood Block & Lawrence Block, "The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke"
Augustus Muir, "The Kestar Diamond Case"
Kate Ellis, "The Odor of Sanctity"
Edward D. Hoch, "The Problem of the Old Oak Tree"
Nicholas Olde, "The Invisible Weapon"
Ray Cummings, "The Confession of Rosa Vitelli"
Stephen Barr, "The Locked Room to End Locked Rooms"

Shoot if you must
It may not be terribly original, but shooting someone tends to be pretty effective

Clayton Rawson, "Nothing Is Impossible"
Bill Pronzini, "Where Have You Gone, Sam Spade?"
G.D.I. & M.I. Cole, "In a Telephone Cabinet"
Stuart Towne, "Death Out of Thin Air"
Agatha Christie, "The Dream"
Margery Allingham, "The Border-Line Case"
Melville Davisson Post, "The Bradmoor Murder"
Leslie Charteris, "The Man Who Liked Toys"
Hulbert Footner, "The Ashcomb Poor Case"
Georges Simenon, "The Little House at Croix-Rousse"

Stolen sweets are best
How does a thief remove valuables from a closely guarded room? It seems impossible, but…

Erle Stanley Gardner, "The Bird in the Hand"
David Durham, "The Gulverbury Diamonds"
Frederick Irving Anderson, "The Fifth Tube"
MacKinlay Kantor, "The Strange Case of Steinkelwintz"
Maurice Leblanc, "Arsène Lupin in Prison"
L.T. Meade, "The Mystery of the Strong Room"
Dennis Lynds, "No Way Out"
C. Daly King, "The Episode of the Codex Curse"

One man’s poison, signor, is another’s meat
Often described as a woman’s murder weapon, poison doesn’t really care who administers it

Dorothy L. Sayers, "The Poisoned Dow ’08"
Margaret Frazer, "A Traveller’s Tale"
P.G. Wodehouse, "Death at the Excelsior"

Our final hope is flat despair
Some stories simply can’t be categorized

Martin Edwards, "Waiting for Godstow"

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

0307743969

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials

Write a Review