The Locked-Room Mysteries

In this definitive collection, Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler selects a multifarious mix from across the entire history of the locked room story, which should form the cornerstone of any crime reader's library.

Virtually all of the great writers of detective fiction have produced masterpieces in this genre, including Agatha Christie, Edgar Allan Poe, Dorothy L. Sayers, Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, G.K. Chesterton, John Dickson Carr, Dashiell Hammett, Ngaio Marsh and Stephen King.

The purest kind of detective story involves a crime solved by observation and deduction, rather than luck, coincidence or confession. The supreme form of detection involves the explanation of an impossible crime, whether the sort of vanishing act that would make Houdini proud, a murder that leaves no visible trace, or the most unlikely villain imaginable.

70 stories handpicked by Otto Penzle



OTTO PENZLER is the proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. Penzler is also the founder of The Mysterious Press, Otto Penzler Books and The Armchair Detective Library. As an editor, he has received an Edgar Award, and the prestigious Ellery Queen Award for his exceptional contributions to publishing. The Mystery Writers of America also honored Penzler in 2003 with its highest non-writing award, the Raven.