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Locked-room Murder
The "locked-room" or "impossible crime" mystery is a type of crime seen in crime 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, 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crime Fiction
Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, often a murder. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has multiple subgenres, including detective fiction (such as the whodunit), courtroom drama, hard-boiled fiction, and legal thrillers. Most crime drama focuses on crime investigation and does not feature the courtroom. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre. History The '' One Thousand and One Nights'' (''Arabian Nights'') contains the earliest known examples of crime fiction. One example of a story of this genre is the medieval Arabic tale of "The Three Apples", one of the tales narrated by Scheherazade in the ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are milestones in the field of crime fiction. Doyle was a prolific writer; other than Holmes stories, his works include fantasy and science fiction stories about Professor Challenger and humorous stories about the Napoleonic soldier Brigadier Gerard, as well as plays, romances, poetry, non-fiction, and historical novels. One of Doyle's early short stories, " J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement" (1884), helped to popularise the mystery of the ''Mary Celeste''. Name Doyle is often referred to as "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" or "Conan Doyle", implying that "Conan" is part of a compound surname rather than a middle name. His baptism entry in the register of St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, gives "Arth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Hollow Man (1935 Novel)
''The Hollow Man'' (''The Three Coffins'' in the USA) is a 1935 locked room mystery novel by the American writer John Dickson Carr, featuring his recurring investigator Gideon Fell. It contains in chapter 17 the often-reprinted "locked room lecture" in which Dr Fell speaks directly to the reader, setting out the various ways in which murder can be committed in an apparently locked room or otherwise impossible situation. The book has received high praise from many critics, and in 1981 was selected as the best locked room mystery of all time by a panel of 17 mystery authors and reviewers. Plot Professor Charles Grimaud's meeting with friends at a London tavern is interrupted by the illusionist Pierre Fley, who threatens Grimaud and warns of an even more dangerous brother who seeks Grimaud's life. Grimaud tells him to send his brother and be damned. A few nights later, a visitor concealing his identity with a false face arrives at Grimaud's house and is shown up to his study ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr (November 30, 1906 – February 27, 1977) was an American author of detective stories, who also published using the pseudonyms Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson, and Roger Fairbairn. He lived in England for a number of years, and is often grouped among "British-style" mystery writers. Most (though not all) of his novels had English settings, especially country villages and estates, and English characters. His two best-known fictional detectives ( Dr. Gideon Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale) were both English. Carr is generally regarded as one of the greatest writers of so-called "Golden Age" mysteries; complex, plot-driven stories in which the puzzle is paramount. He was influenced in this regard by the works of Gaston Leroux and by the Father Brown stories of G. K. Chesterton. He was a master of the so-called locked room mystery, in which a detective solves apparently impossible crimes. The Dr. Fell mystery '' The Hollow Man'' (1935), usually considered Carr's masterp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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, which were notable for their intricate planning. Although outshone by Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler and other more celebrated authors from the golden age of detective fiction, he was highly esteemed by those authors, and many of his books are still in print. Birth and education Crofts was born at 26 Waterloo Road, Dublin, Ireland. His father, also named Freeman Wills Crofts, was a surgeon-lieutenant in the Army Medical Service but he died of fever in Honduras before the young Freeman Wills Crofts was born. In 1883, Crofts' mother, née Celia Frances Wise, married the Venerable Jonathan Harding, Vicar of Gilford, County Down, later Archdeacon of Dromore, and Crofts was brought up in the vicarage at Gilford. He attended Methodist College ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Chinese Orange Mystery
''The Chinese Orange Mystery'' is a novel that was written in 1934 by Ellery Queen. It is the eighth of the Ellery Queen mysteries. In a poll of 17 detective story writers and reviewers, this novel was voted as the eighth best locked room mystery of all time. Plot summary A wealthy publisher and collector of precious stones and Chinese postage stamps has a luxurious suite in a hotel that serves to handle his non-publishing business and the comings and goings of his staff, his relatives, and his female friends. When an odd and anonymous little man arrives and refuses to state his business, no one is surprised; he is locked (from outside ''only'') in an anteroom with a bowl of fruit (including tangerines, also known as Chinese oranges) and left to await the publisher's arrival. When the door is unlocked, though, a truly bizarre scene is displayed. The little man's skull is crushed, his clothing is reversed, back to front, all the furnishings of the room have been turned backwa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 baffling murders. Dannay and Lee wrote most of the more than thirty novels and several short story collections in which Ellery Queen appeared as a character, and their books were among the most popular of American mysteries published between 1929 and 1971. In addition to the fiction featuring their eponymous brilliant amateur detective, the two men acted as editors: as Ellery Queen they edited more than thirty anthologies of crime fiction and true crime, and Dannay founded and for many decades edited ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'', which has been published continuously from 1941 to the present. From 1961, Dannay and Lee also commissioned other authors to write crime thrillers using the Ellery Queen ''nom de plume'', but not featuring ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Canary Murder Case
''For the film adaptation see The Canary Murder Case (film)'' ''The Canary Murder Case'' (1927) is a murder mystery novel which deals with the murders of a sexy nightclub singer known as "the Canary," and, eventually, her boyfriend, solved by Philo Vance. S. S. Van Dine's classic whodunnit, second in the Philo Vance series, is said by Howard Haycraft to have broken "all modern publishing records for detective fiction." The earliest editions give the title with quotation marks around the word "Canary", but most subsequent editions omit them. Plot summary The beautiful Margaret Odell, famous Broadway beauty and ex-Follies girl known as "The Canary", is found murdered in her apartment. She has a number of men in her life, ranging from high society to gangsters, and more than one man visited her apartment on the night she dies. It is Philo Vance's characteristic erudition that leads him to a key clue that allows him to penetrate a very clever alibi and reveal the killer. "The str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 intuition and keen understanding of human nature. Chesterton loosely based him on The Right Reverend, the Rt Rev. Monsignor, Msgr. John O'Connor (priest), John O'Connor (1870–1952), a Catholic priest, parish priest in Bradford, who was involved in Chesterton's conversion to Roman Catholicism, Catholicism in 1922. Character Father Brown is a short, plain Roman Catholic priest, with shapeless clothes, a large umbrella, and an uncanny insight into human behaviour. His unremarkable, seemingly naïve appearance hides an unexpectedly sharp intelligence and keen powers of observation. Somewhat in the vein of Agatha Christie's detective character Miss Marple, Brown uses his unimposing demeanor to his advantage when studying criminals, to whom he seems ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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, 1909), which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon Chaney, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical. His 1907 novel ''The Mystery of the Yellow Room'' is one of the most celebrated locked room mysteries. Life and career Leroux was born in Paris in 1868, the illegitimate child of Marie Bidaut and Dominique Leroux, who married a month after his birth. He claimed an illustrious pedigree, including descent from William II of England (in French, Guillaume le Roux, son of William the Conqueror), and social connections such as having been the official playmate of Prince Philippe, Count of Paris at the College d'Eu in Normany. After studying as a lawyer in Caen, he worked as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Mystère De La Chambre Jaune
''The Mystery of the Yellow Room'' (in French ''Le mystère de la chambre jaune'') is a mystery novel written by French author Gaston Leroux. One of the first locked-room mystery novels, it was first published serially in France in the periodical ''L'Illustration'' from September 1907 to November 1907, then in its own right in 1908. It is the first novel starring fictional reporter Joseph Rouletabille and concerns a complex, and seemingly impossible, crime in which the criminal appears to disappear from a locked room. Leroux provides the reader with detailed, precise diagrams and floorplans illustrating the crime scene. The story provides an intellectual challenge to the reader. The novel finds its continuation in the 1908 novel ''The Perfume of the Lady in Black'', wherein a number of the characters familiar from this story reappear. Plot summary Reporter and amateur sleuth Joseph Rouletabille is sent to investigate a criminal case at the Château du Glandier and takes along hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
