Mission: Impossible

The collection of "impossible crime" stories by Ed Hoch which are featured on this blog this week focus my attention once again on the locked room/impossible crime genre which - to me - are among the most interesting traditional crime stories out there.

In a way, they are all similar to the kinds of tricks used by professional magicians, and it's no surprise that some of the best writers of these stories had some background in stage magic, or at least were thorough in their research of the principles on which most magic tricks are based. The stories also suffer a bit from "is that all there is?" syndrome - when we are shown the secret of the impossible situation, we are disappointed to find that it was all a trick. It's an unfair, but entirely natural, reaction.

If you haven't done much reading of these stories, there are a few authors worth seeking out. The foremost practitioner, of course, was John Dickson Carr (who also wrote as Carter Dickson). I've written about him many times before, particularly about "The Three Coffins," published in the U. K. as "The Hollow Man," which I still think is the finest example of this genre. It's out of print at the moment, but copies are available through mystery bookstores that specialize in second-hand editions.

There are other authors. There's Joseph Commings, whose stories featuring Senator Brooks Banner are all locked-room stories. There was Clyde B. Clason, whose scholarly hero, Lucius Theocritus Westborough, was amazingly adept at solving the unlikeliest of crimes. Another Carr, Glyn Carr, wrote a series of mysteries where the murders took place on mountainsides, outdoor "locked rooms" where the crimes seemed impossible. Many of the books written by Ellery Queen, particularly the early novels, fall into this category as well - in fact, if you can find it, let me recommend "The Lamp of God," a brilliant novella in which an entire building simply disappears overnight. (It was contained in "Ellery Queen Omnibus," as well as other collections.) Happily, there are also modern authors around the world still writing such stories.

I find most of these books to be both challenging and enormously entertaining. If you haven't read many of them, but enjoy other traditional classic mysteries, I suggest you give them a try.