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Locked Room
The "locked-room" or "impossible crime" mystery is a subgenre of detective fiction in which a crime (almost always murder) is committed in circumstances under which it was seemingly impossible for the perpetrator to commit the crime or evade detection in the course of getting in and out of the crime scene.[1] The crime in question typically involves a crime scene with no indication as to how the intruder could have entered or left, for example: a victim found deceased in a windowless room that is sealed from the inside at the time of discovery. Following other conventions of classic detective
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In an extraordinarily bold move, Carr allows Fell in chapter seventeen [in, The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr (1935)] to address the reader directly, giving a disquisition on the lockedroom mystery that has often been reprinted as an essay on the subject: ‘We’re in a detective story, and we don’t fool the reader by pretending we’re not . . . Let’s candidly glory in the noblest pursuit possible to characters in a book . . . When I say that a story about a hermetically sealed chamber is more int
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― The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books
― The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books
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But, if you're going to analyse impossible situations,' interrupted Pettis, 'why discuss detective fiction?'
'Because,' said the doctor, frankly, 'we're in a detective story, and we don't fool the reader by pretending we're not. Let's not invent elaborate excuses to drag in a discussion of detective stories. Let's candidly glory in the noblest pursuits possible to characters in a book.
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― The Hollow Man
― The Hollow Man
