Librivox Mystery Bookshelf

Israel Zangwill, Jacques Futrelle,

G.K. Chesterton and Impossible Crimes

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Israel Zangwill's classic novella "The Big Bow Mystery" (1891) is the flagship of the modern locked room story. In these tales, a crime is committed in a room that is locked from the inside. How could any murderer have committed this crime, and then escaped? It seems impossible. This sort of puzzle is one of the main categories of modern mystery fiction. Writers have devoted considerable ingenuity to developing solutions to the locked room murder. Locked room puzzles climax with the work of John Dickson Carr. A full detailed history of locked room fiction can be found in Robert C. S. Adey's Locked Room Murders and Other Impossible Crimes. This book contains a bibliography, listing over 2,000 impossible crime novels and short stories. (Mike Grost)

Israel Zangwill

The Big Bow Mystery - Novel

Cheating the Gallows - Short story - 9th story in collection

G. K. Chesterton

The Club of Queer Trades - Short story collection

• The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown
• The Painful Fall of a Great Reputation
• The Awful Reason of the Vicar's Visit
• The Singular Speculation of the House-Agent
• The Noticeable Conduct of Professor Chadd
• The Eccentric Seclusion of the Old Lady

The Innocence of Father Brown - Short story collection

• The Blue Cross
• The Secret Garden
• The Queer Feet
• The Flying Stars
• The Invisible Man
• The Honour of Israel Gow
• The Wrong Shape
• The Sins of Prince Saradine
• The Hammer of God
• The Eye of Apollo   Separate recording here (6th story)
• The Sign of the Broken Sword
• The Three Tools of Death

The Wisdom of Father Brown - Short story collection

• The Absence of Mr Glass
• The Paradise of Thieves
• The Duel of Dr Hirsch
• The Man in the Passage
• The Mistake of the Machine
• The Head of Caesar
• The Purple Wig
• The Perishing of the Pendragons
• The God of the Gongs
• The Salad of Colonel Cray
• The Strange Crime of John Boulnois
• The Fairy Tale of Father Brown

The Man Who Knew Too Much - Short story collection

• The Face in the Target
• The Vanishing Prince
• The Soul of the Schoolboy
• The Bottomless Well
• The Fad of the Fisherman
• The Hole in the Wall
• The Temple of Silence
• The Vengeance of the Statue

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Jacques Futrelle

My First Experience With the Great Logician - Short story - 1st story in collection

The Thinking Machine - Short story - 10th story in collection

Thomas W. and Mary E. Hanshew

The Riddle of the 5:28 - Short story - 5th story in collection

The Rope of Fear - Short story - 7th story in collection

Cleek: The Man of the Forty Faces - Short story collection

Gaston Leroux

The Mystery of the Yellow Room - Novel

Edgar Wallace

The Clue of the Twisted Candle - Novel

The Daffodil Mystery - Novel

The Angel of Terror - Novel - 2nd version

- Mike Grost's recommended reading

- A Hayworth-Queen Cornerstone

- Link to etext

- Available on Amazon.com