A body in a room locked from the inside. No way in, no way out — and yet, murder. The impossible-crime story is detective fiction's purest puzzle, and this is its golden-age treasury.
Curated by Otto Penzler — founder of New York's Mysterious Bookshop, Edgar Award winner, and the world's most celebrated anthologist of crime fiction — this collection gathers classic locked-room and impossible-crime stories from the American golden age of mystery, including masters of the form such as John Dickson Carr and Ellery Queen.
Sealed studies, vanishing killers, deaths that could not have happened — each story lays its clues before you fairly and dares you to solve it before the detective does. Then it shows you the trick, and you kick yourself.
Perfect for
- Fans of Agatha Christie, Anthony Horowitz's Magpie Murders and Janice Hallett
- Readers who loved The Thursday Murder Club and want the originals
- Puzzle-lovers — every story plays fair with its clues
- Dipping into on trains, at bedtime, between bigger books
About the editor
Otto Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York and the most influential anthologist in crime fiction, with two Edgar Awards and the Ellery Queen Award among his honours.
