The "locked-room" or "impossible crime" mystery is a type of crime seen in

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

and detective fiction. The crime in question, typically murder ("locked-room murder"), is committed in circumstances under which it appeared impossible for the perpetrator to enter the

crime scene A crime scene is any location that may be associated with a committed crime. Crime scenes contain physical evidence that is pertinent to a criminal investigation. This evidence is collected by crime scene investigators (CSI) and law enforcemen ...

, commit the crime, and leave undetected. The crime in question typically involves a situation whereby an intruder could not have left; for example the original literal "locked room": a murder victim found in a windowless room locked from the inside at the time of discovery. Following other conventions of classic detective fiction, the reader is normally presented with the puzzle and all of the clues, and is encouraged to solve the mystery before the solution is revealed in a dramatic climax. The '' prima facie'' impression of seeing a locked room crime is that the perpetrator is a dangerous, supernatural entity capable of defying the laws of nature by walking through walls or vanishing into thin air. The need for a rational explanation for the crime is what drives the protagonist to look beyond these appearances and solve the puzzle.

History of the genre

The earliest fully-fledged example of this type of story is generally held to be

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...

's " The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841). Robert Adey credits Sheridan Le Fanu for ''A Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess'' (1838), which was published three years before Poe's “Rue Morgue”. Other early locked-room mysteries include Israel Zangwill's '' The Big Bow Mystery'' (1892); " The Adventure of the Empty House" (1903), a Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle; " The Problem of Cell 13" (1905) by Jacques Futrelle, featuring "The Thinking Machine" Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen; and '' Le Mystère de la Chambre Jaune'' (''The Mystery of the Yellow Room''), written in 1907 by French journalist and author

Gaston Leroux Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux (6 May 186815 April 1927) was a French journalist and author of detective fiction. In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel '' The Phantom of the Opera'' (french: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, ...

. G. K. Chesterton's

Father Brown Father Brown is a fictional Roman Catholic priest and amateur detective who is featured in 53 short stories published between 1910 and 1936 written by English author G. K. Chesterton. Father Brown solves mysteries and crimes using his intui ...

stories often featured locked-room mysteries, and other mystery authors have also dabbled in the genre, such as S. S. Van Dine in '' The Canary Murder Case'' (1927),

Ellery Queen Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1929 by American crime fiction writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee and the name of their main fictional character, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve ...

in '' The Chinese Orange Mystery'' (1934), and

Freeman Wills Crofts Freeman Wills Crofts FRSA (1 June 1879 – 11 April 1957) was an Irish mystery author, best remembered for the character of Inspector Joseph French. A railway engineer by training, Crofts introduced railway themes into many of his stories, ...

in such novels as ''Sudden Death'' and ''The End of Andrew Harrison''. John Dickson Carr, who also wrote as Carter Dickson, was known as "master of the locked-room mystery". His 1935 novel '' The Hollow Man'' (US title: ''The Three Coffins'') was in 1981 voted the best locked-room mystery novel of all time by 17 authors and reviewers, although Carr himself names

's '' The Mystery of the Yellow Room'' (1907–1908) as his favorite. (Leroux's novel was named third in that same poll; Hake Talbot's '' Rim of the Pit'' (1944) was named second.) Three other Carr/Dickson novels were in the top ten of the 1981 list: ''The Crooked Hinge'' (1938), ''The Judas Window'' (1938), and ''The Peacock Feather Murders'' (1937). In French, Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, Gaston Boca, Marcel Lanteaume, Pierre Véry, Noel Vindry, and the Belgian Stanislas-André Steeman were other important "impossible crime" writers, Vindry being the most prolific with 16 novels.

Edgar Faure Edgar Jean Faure (; 18 August 1908 – 30 March 1988) was a French politician, lawyer, essayist, historian and memoirist who served as Prime Minister of France in 1952 and again between 1955 and 1956.Golden Age of Detective Fiction, English-speaking writers dominated the genre, but after the 1940s there was a general waning of English-language output. French authors continued writing into the 1950s and early 1960s, notably Martin Meroy and Boileau-Narcejac, who joined forces to write several locked-room novels. They also co-authored the

psychological thrillers Psychological thriller is a genre combining the thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting. In terms of context and con ...

which brought them international fame, two of which were adapted for the screen as ''

Vertigo Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...

'' ( 1954 novel; 1958 film) and '' Diabolique'' (1955 film). The most prolific writer during the period immediately following the Golden Age was Japanese:

Akimitsu Takagi , was the pen-name of a popular Japanese crime fiction writer active during the Shōwa period of Japan. His real name was Takagi Seiichi. Biography Takagi was born in Aomori City in Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan. He graduated from the Daiic ...

wrote almost 30 locked-room mysteries, starting in 1949 and continuing to his death in 1995. A number have been translated into English. In Robert van Gulik's mystery novel '' The Chinese Maze Murders'' (1951), one of the cases solved by

Judge Dee Judge Dee, or Judge Di, is a semi-fictional character based on the historical figure Di Renjie, county magistrate and statesman of the Tang court. The character appeared in the 18th-century Chinese detective and '' gong'an'' crime novel ''Di Gong ...

is an example of the locked-room subgenre. The genre continued into the 1970s and beyond. Bill Pronzini's ''Nameless Detective'' novels feature locked-room puzzles. The most prolific creator of impossible crimes is

Edward D. Hoch Edward Dentinger Hoch (February 22, 1930 – January 17, 2008) was an American writer of detective fiction. Although he wrote several novels, he was primarily known for his vast output of over 950 short stories. Biography Hoch (pronounced ...

, whose short stories feature a detective, Dr. Sam Hawthorne, whose main role is as a country physician. The majority of Hoch stories feature impossible crimes; one appeared in '' EQMM'' every month from May 1973 through January 2008. Hoch's protagonist is a gifted amateur detective who uses pure brainpower to solve his cases. The French writer Paul Halter, whose output of over 30 novels is almost exclusively of the locked-room genre, has been described as the natural successor to John Dickson Carr. Although strongly influenced by Carr and Agatha Christie, he has a unique writing style featuring original plots and puzzles. A collection of ten of his short stories, entitled ''The Night of the Wolf'', has been translated into English. The Japanese writer

Soji Shimada is a Japanese mystery writer. Born in Fukuyama City, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. Biography Soji Shimada graduated from Seishikan High School in Fukuyama City, Hiroshima Prefecture, and later Musashino Art University as a Commercial arts d ...

has been writing impossible crime stories since 1981. The first, '' The Tokyo Zodiac Murders'' (1981), and the second, ''Murder in the Crooked House'' (1982), are the only ones to have been translated into English. The themes of the Japanese novels are far more grisly and violent than those of the more genteel Anglo-Saxons.

Dismemberment Dismemberment is the act of cutting, ripping, tearing, pulling, wrenching or otherwise disconnecting the limbs from a living or dead being. It has been practiced upon human beings as a form of capital punishment, especially in connection with ...

is a preferred murder method. Despite the gore, most norms of the classic detective fiction novel are strictly followed.

Umberto Eco Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel ''The Name of th ...

, in his

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

novel ''

Baudolino ''Baudolino'' is a 2000 novel by Umberto Eco about the adventures of a man named Baudolino in the known and mythical Christian world of the 12th century. ''Baudolino'' was translated into English in 2001 by William Weaver William is a male ...

'', takes the locked-room theme into medieval times. The book's plot suggests that Holy Roman Emperor

Frederick I Frederick I may refer to: * Frederick of Utrecht or Frederick I (815/16–834/38), Bishop of Utrecht. * Frederick I, Duke of Upper Lorraine (942–978) * Frederick I, Duke of Swabia (1050–1105) * Frederick I, Count of Zoll ...

had not drowned in a river, as history records, but died mysteriously at night while a guest at the castle of a sinister Armenian noble. The book features various suspects, each of whom had a clever means of killing the Emperor without entering the room where he slept – all these means having been available in medieval times. The locked-room genre also appears in children's detective fiction, although the crime committed is usually less severe than murder. One notable author is

Enid Blyton Enid Mary Blyton (11 August 1897 – 28 November 1968) was an English children's writer, whose books have been worldwide bestsellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies. Her books are still enormously popular and have b ...

, who wrote several juvenile detective series, often featuring seemingly impossible crimes that her young amateur detectives set out to solve. The Hardy Boys novel '' While the Clock Ticked'' was (originally) about a locked and isolated room where a man seeks privacy, but receives mysterious threatening messages there. The messages are delivered by a mechanical device lowered into the room through a chimney. ''

King Ottokar's Sceptre ''King Ottokar's Sceptre'' (french: link=no, Le Sceptre d'Ottokar) is the eighth volume of ''The Adventures of Tintin'', the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative Belgian newspaper for its children's sup ...

'' (1938–1939) is the only Tintin adventure that is a locked-room mystery. No homicide is involved; rather the crime is the disappearance of the royal sceptre, which is bound to have disastrous consequences for the king. The British TV series ''

Jonathan Creek ''Jonathan Creek'' is a long-running British mystery crime drama series produced by the BBC and written by David Renwick. It stars Alan Davies as the titular character, who works as a creative consultant to a stage magician while also solvi ...

'' has a particular 'speciality' for locked-room-murder style mysteries. The eponymous protagonist, Jonathan Creek, designs magic tricks for stage magicians, and is often called on to solve cases where the most important element of the mystery is clearly ''how'' the crime was committed, such as a man who allegedly shot himself in a sealed bunker when he had crippling arthritis in his hands, how a woman was shot in a sealed room with no gun and without the window being opened or broken, how a dead body could have vanished from a locked room when the only door was in full view of someone else, etc. Pulp magazines in the 1930s often contained impossible crime tales, dubbed ''

weird menace Weird menace is a subgenre of horror fiction and detective fiction that was popular in the pulp magazines of the 1930s and early 1940s. The weird menace pulps, also known as shudder pulps, generally featured stories in which the hero was pitted a ...

'', in which a series of supernatural or science-fiction type events is eventually explained rationally. Notable practitioners of the period were

Fredric Brown Fredric Brown (October 29, 1906 – March 11, 1972) was an American science fiction, fantasy, and mystery writer.D. J. McReynolds, "The Short Fiction of Fredric Brown" in Frank N. Magill, (ed.) ''Survey of Science Fiction Literature'', Vol. 4 ...

, Paul Chadwick and, to a certain extent, Cornell Woolrich, although these writers tended to rarely use the Private Eye protagonists that many associate with pulp fiction. 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 Arthur Henry "Sarsfield" Ward (15 February 1883 – 1 June 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was an English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu."Rohmer, Sax" by Jack Adrian in Da ...

have also 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. One American comic book series that made good use of locked-room mysteries is Mike W. Barr's '' Maze Agency''. In the 21st century, examples of popular detective series novels that include locked-room type puzzles are ''

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ''The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'' (original title in sv, Män som hatar kvinnor , lit=''Men Who Hate Women'') is a psychological thriller novel by Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson (1954–2004). It was published posthumously in 2 ...

'' (2005) by Stieg Larssen, ''Bloodhounds'' (2004) by

Peter Lovesey Peter (Harmer) Lovesey (born 1936), also known by his pen name Peter Lear, is a British writer of historical and contemporary detective novels and short stories. His best-known series characters are Sergeant Cribb, a Victorian-era police detec ...

, and ''In the Morning I'll Be Gone'' (2014) by Adrian McKinty.

Real-life examples

* According to a report in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', March 10 and 11, 1929, Isidore Fink, of 4 East 132nd Street,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, 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 not 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. The police found Fink dead with two bullet wounds in his chest and one in his left wrist. No money had been taken, and no weapon was found at the scene. It was theorised that the murderer may have climbed the outside of the building and fired through the transom, but a powder burn on Fink's wrist indicated that he had been shot at close range. Interviewed some years later, Police Commissioner Mulrooney called the Fink murder an "insoluble mystery". * On May 16, 1937, Laetitia Toureaux was found stabbed to death in an otherwise empty first-class compartment of the

Paris Métro The Paris Métro (french: Métro de Paris ; short for Métropolitain ) is a rapid transit system in the Paris metropolitan area, France. A symbol of the city, it is known for its density within the capital's territorial limits, uniform architec ...

. The subway train had left the terminus, Porte de Charenton, at 6:27 p.m. and had arrived at the next station, Porte Dorée, at 6:28 p.m. Witnesses did not see anyone else enter or leave the compartment where Mlle. Toureaux's body was found. The murderer had one minute and twenty seconds at their disposal. Neither the murderer nor the method of their escape was ever discovered. * In 2010, the uninjured dead body of Gareth Williams, an employee of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), was found in a bag that was zipped up and padlocked from the outside, with a key inside. There was no forensic evidence of anyone else's involvement. Despite suggestions that he had somehow locked himself inside the bag, two escapologists failed to replicate the feat despite 400 attempts, though one would not rule it out.

History of the genre

Real-life examples

See also

References

Further reading