Sat 7 May 2011
Reviewed by Marvin Lachman: ROBERT C. S. ADEY & DOUGLAS G. GREENE, Editors – Death Locked In.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[3] Comments
ROBERT C. S. ADEY & DOUGLAS G. GREENE, Editors – Death Locked In. International Polygonics Ltd, softcover, 1987. Hardcover reprint: Barnes & Noble, 1994.
Death Locked In is a generous collection of twenty-four stories covering 553 pages. Its editors, Robert C. S. Adey and Douglas G. Greene, are two of the world’s leading experts on the locked room mystery. Lest those who are not devotees of the classical puzzle be put off, I will point out that this book contains great variety, though all stories have one common denominator: a locked room.
From the pulps are stories by Fredric Brown and Cornell Woolrich. There is a science-fiction mystery by Anthony Boucher. Ngaio Marsh, quite appropriately, uses a theatrical setting. Even Bill Pronzini’s nameless private eye solves one. Early locked-room stories by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, L. Frank Baum of Oz fame, Nick Carter, and Wilkie Collins are included.
Finally, we have the best practitioners of this wonderful sub-genre: John Dickson Carr, Edward D. Hoch, and Ellery Queen with a reprint of one of his famous radio mysteries. Each story in the book has a learned introduction, telling interesting information about the author and putting the story into historical perspective.
Vol. 9, No. 5, Sept-Oct 1987.
May 7th, 2011 at 1:40 pm
I got this anthology a few years after it came out. It is wonderful – a real eye opening experience.
It was often the sole source for these stories, although some have since been reprinted in other collections.
May 7th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Yes, indeed, a really superb collection of stories!
May 7th, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Let me expand on some thoughts I had since leaving the previous comment. Although I buy EQMM and AHMM every month, and I have long runs of each, I don’t often read short stories. Unless there’s a puzzle to them, and a detective whose job is to work out the solution, most short stories written today leave me cold — asking myself what was that all about? — even those which get awards and a lot of acclaim. I suppose that’s why collections of “impossible crimes” always catch my eye. If done well, they simply can’t be beat.