Customer Reviews

The Big Bow Mystery

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Author Israel Zangwill wrote one of the earliest locked-room mysteries in "The Big Bow Mystery." A woman becomes discouraged when she cannot wake her new lodger. He is in his room, which has been locked from the inside. Despite her fervent knocks, she simply cannot wake him, and she hears no sounds from within. Convinced that her lodger has been murdered, she enlists the help of a celebrated ex-detective neighbor. He breaks down the door, and the lodger is found dead in his bed, his throat slit. The door was indeed locked from the inside, and the windows were similarly secured. Thus is the puzzle at the heart of one of the earliest (circa 1891) locked-room mysteries.

Zangwill has indeed included a masterful puzzle, though the story itself is somewhat problematic. The middle of the story is unnecessarily complex and confusing, and there is a bit too much devotion to politics. Still, the book is very accessible, and anyone with a fondness for the sort of "impossible" crime that John Dickson Carr (a.k.a. Carter Dickson, a.k.a. Carr Dickson) later made famous should read this early entry to the genre.

Note: I read the paperback book for this review and have not listened to the tapes.

Israel Zangwill did not write this novel to write a mystery, he wrote it to be a satire of Victorian England. The charecters are on dimesional at best, and completely unlikeable, even the detective. The solution for the mystery is belivable, but the reason for the impossible nature of the crime is completely unbelivable. Like the other reviewers have said, and I agree, the middle of the story is completely pointless, as are several of the charecters. But, it was the first locked room mystery novel, so I must give it some credit.

One of the main points of this novel is that people see what they expect to see, and do so at the expense of what's really there. So, caveat lector. Don't start this early locked-room mystery (the first?) expecting a purist's detective tale of the later (Golden Age) type. That's not to say that it isn't a decent locked-room mystery with a couple of last-page surprises, but Zangwill also uses the genre as a vehicle for his ideas and observations, and for poking fun at late Victorian London. The novel offers a good representation of the period--especially with regards to the labor movement--Dickensian characters (almost caricatures, not necessarily likeable but still entertaining), and quite a bit of sardonic humor.

In that regard it struck me as more "modern" than many later and more pristine detective novels of the twenties and thirties.

The fact that the mystery disappears after the second chapter in no way detracts from the joy of this book. From widowed boarding house attendants to freeloading artists to a detective that might as well be the anti-Sherlock Holmes, this is one of the funniest and meanest books to come out of the Victorian era.

Known primarily for Children of the Ghetto, Israel Zangwill was a Jewish Victorian writer with an eye for the foibles and idicoies of every day life. The mystery is not so much abandoned as seen from a societal basis. We have the glory hounds, the newspaper stories, the sensationalists, and the vendors who gather outside the scene of the murder to sell food to the tourists.

When the murderer is revealed, it's a bit of a letdown, but the trip from the beginning to the end is so enjoyable that you don't mind.

My favorite mystery reading is by authors of the 1800's. They were the days of authors who could definitely write, not at all like
today's so called writers(Micheal Connolly is probably the best).
I had heard of Zangwill but had never read any of his writings.
This one when it began I was intrigued; a real mystery..locked
room then it begans to meander into labor relations, etc. of the
period occasionally inserting something about the crime then
back again to other things. Angwill is sometimes amusing in the
names and description of his characters such as, Mrs. Drabdump.
Another character was, Peter Crowl who evidently wanted to know
everything about everything from the Bible on. This is a description of Peter Crowl: Crowl was a thinker or thought he
was which seems to involve original thinking' his hair thinning
rapidly at the top as his brain was struggling to get as near as
possible o the realities of things. I am probably the only one
who couldnt quite get a grab on things..