Locked room mystery

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In crime fiction, a locked room mystery is a story in which the reader is presented with a puzzle and encouraged to solve it before finishing the story and being told the solution. The invention of this genre is credited to French journalist/author, Gaston Leroux with Le Mystère de la chambre jaune (The Mystery of the Yellow Room ) (1908). Another early example in the genre is "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841) by Edgar Allan Poe. Even though the genre wasn't established until the 19th and 20th centuries the apocalyptic Biblical story of Bel and the Dragon has elements of the genre in it. This sub-genre of detective fiction flourished with the popularity of writers like John Dickson Carr, Clayton Rawson, and Agatha Christie.

Related Topics:
Crime fiction - Gaston Leroux - Le Mystère de la chambre jaune - The Murders in the Rue Morgue - Edgar Allan Poe - 19th - 20th centuries - Biblical - Bel and the Dragon - John Dickson Carr - Clayton Rawson - Agatha Christie

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Typically, a "locked room" in this narrow meaning of the word—also referred to as a "hermetically sealed chamber"—is a room in which a murder is committed. There are a limited number of suspects, some of them possibly even without a watertight alibi. But on closer inspection, it turns out that no one could possibly have perpetrated the murder, because at the time the murder was committed, there was definitely no way of entering and/or leaving the room unseen or without leaving a trace. The prima facie impression, almost invariably would be that the perpetrator has vanished into thin air. (See "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" for Poe's statement of the "rules" of the locked-room mystery.)

Related Topics:
Murder - Suspect - Alibi - Prima facie - The Murders in the Rue Morgue

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