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OTTO PENZLER
V i n tag e B o o k s
A Divis io n o f Ra n d o m H o u s e L LC
N ew Yo r k
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Introduction
OTTO PENZLER
Among
a f i c i o n a d o s of detective
fiction, the term locked-room mystery has
become an inaccurate but useful catchall phrase
meaning the telling of a crime that appears to be
impossible. The story does not require a hermetically sealed chamber so much as a location
with an utterly inaccessible murder victim. A
bludgeoned, stabbed, or strangled body in the
center of pristine snow or sand is just as baffling
as a lone figure on a boat at sea or aboard a solo
airplane or in the classic locked room.
Like so much else in the world of mystery fiction, readers are indebted to Edgar Allan Poe for
the invention of the locked-room mystery, which
happened to be the startling core of the first
pure detective story ever written, The Murders
in the Rue Morgue, initially published in the
April 1841 issue of Grahams Magazine. In this
groundbreaking tale, two women are heard to
be screaming and a group of neighbors race up
the stairs to the womens apartment. They break
down the locked door, the key still in the lock on
the inside, to find the savagely murdered mother
and daughter. The windows are closed and fastened, egress through the fireplace chimney is
impassable, and there are no loose floorboards
or secret passages. Of course, the police are baf-
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INTRODUCTION
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INTRODUCTION
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