Murder Impossible: An Extravaganza of Miraculous Murders Fantastic Felonies & Incredible Criminals [Hardcover]

Jack Adrian (Author, Editor), Robert Adey (Editor)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 306 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub; First American Edition, 1st printing edition (December 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0881846414
• ISBN-13: 978-0881846416
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #433,750 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4.0 out of 5 stars "IMPOSSIBLE CRIMES" IN TWENTY STORIES AND A RADIO PLAY, July 25, 2010

By 

David R. Eastwood (Long Island, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Murder Impossible: An Extravaganza of Miraculous Murders Fantastic Felonies & Incredible Criminals (Hardcover)

Despite a few weak items, MURDER IMPOSSIBLE is a "must-have" anthology for all who enjoy so-called "impossible crimes" fiction. Jack Adrian and Robert Adey have written short introductions to each of the 21 works (20 stories and a short radio play) and frequently recommend other works by the authors--works which many readers will probably try to track down.

The editors seem proudest about including Joel Townsley Rogers' short novel THE HANGING ROPE (1946) and "The Other Side" (1990) by Hake Talbot (pen name of Henning Nelms). Rogers' novelette in several respects is a tour de force locked-room murder story (though I felt its style became obtrusive in a few places); Talbot died in 1986, and his piece was previously unpublished in English.

One of the best locked-room murder Puzzles in this book is John Dickson Carr's "The House in Goblin Wood" (1947), which involves a plot gimmick found in many other stories--Anthony Wynne's "The Gold of Tso-fu" (1926), Agatha Christie's "The Dream" (1937), Derleth's "The Adventure of the Frightened Baronet" (1945), Knox's "The Adventure of the First Class Carriage" (1947), Hoch's "The Return of the Speckled Band" (1987), Kaminsky's "The Man from Capetown" (2001), and Davies' "The Adventure of the Whitrow Inheritance" (2008).

John Lutz's "It's a Dog's Life" (1982) and Edward D. Hoch's "Captain Leopold and the Impossible Murder" (1976) are excellent Puzzle stories, respectively involving a missing weapon and a man found strangled in his car during a traffic jam. Edgar Wallace's "The Missing Romney" (1919), later incorporated into his novel FOUR SQUARE JANE, also provides an excellent challenge to the reader's wits. Leonard Pruyn's "Dinner at Garibaldi's" (1954) poses the problem of how a man who dined three times a day at a gourmet restaurant died of malnutrition. Arthur Porges's "Coffee Break" (1964) is a good arm-chair locked-room Puzzle, which most readers ought to be able to solve. Vincent Cornier's "The Courtyard of the Fly" (1937) involves the theft of pearls, and its interesting Puzzle fooled me.

William Hope Hodgson's "Bullion!" (1911) is very skillfully written as far as mood and human psychology are concerned but struck me as a little weak as a Puzzle story. "The Death of Cyrus Pettigrew" (1909), a murder-on-a-train Puzzle by Sax Rohmer (pen name of Arthur Henry Ward) is just so-so. John F. Suter's "The Impossible Theft" (1964) is a fairly good Puzzle but seems to be based on an old trick used by Houdini when people would strip-search him for keys and lock-picks.

Gerald Findler's "The House of Screams" (1932) strikes me as implausible, and Jacques Futrelle's "Absence of Air" (1922; aka "Vacuum"), one of the four stories Futrelle left behind in London when he boarded the TITANIC and went to his death, seems seriously flawed (Jack Adrian wisely edited Futrelle's story and put the solution at the end instead of in the middle). Bill Pronzini's "Proof of Guilt" (1973) also involves a missing murder weapon but is less plausible than Lutz's story and has a serious plot hole (no attempt was made by the police to test the suspect's hands or clothing for evidence that he had fired any gun).

John Dickson Carr's radio play "A Razor in Fleet Street" (1952) seems very lame in many respects. Joseph Commings' "Ghost in the Gallery" (1949), a Senator Brooks U. Banner mystery, contains some coincidences and a solution that will probably annoy some readers. The Puzzle of Jeffrey M. Wallmann's "Now You See Her" (1971) involves the disappearance of a woman, and I had several doubts about its solution.

Two of the bonus pleasures of this anthology are a pair of Parodies: Alex Atkinson's "Chapter the Last: Merriman Explains" (1951), which tweaks the nose of John Dickson Carr, and George Locke's "A Nineteenth Century Debacle" (1979), which does a clever number on the Holmes and Watson adventures.

"The Blind Spot" (1945) by Barry Perowne (pen name of Philip Atkey) is my least favorite of the selections: it seems designed as a kind of prank on the reader, and although I was easily able to foresee its ending, I consider it a gyp; since it has been frequently anthologized, clearly others disagree with my low opinion.