Israel Zangwill - The Perfect Crime - Collins Detective Club - 2015 - The Big Bow Mystery

 

Israel Zangwill - The Perfect Crime - Collins Detective Club - 2015

(also known as the Big Bow Mystery)

Also contains Edgar Allan Poe - The Murders in the Rue Morgue

NOTE

Poe`s The Murders in the Rue Morgue is said to be the first locked room mystery. Zangwill`s The Perfect Crime aka The Big Bow Mystery is said to be the first full-length novel LRM (though in fact it is in the area of being a novella/a long short story/a short novel, whichever term you prefer).

The publication of the two in a single volume has generally been received with enthusiasm by lovers of old-style detective fiction. 

To my complete surprise, I didn`t enjoy this as much as others have !

It certainly has all the usual ingredients - a man is found dead in a locked room. Investigations show that he has not committed suicide, but as he was alone in a room with the door and windows apparently locked from the inside, how did the murderer first gain access and then escape ? 

Just to complicate matters, it seems he has no known enemies, certainly none with a motive to kill him. 

So far, so good. Initially, I was surprised to find that Zagwill treated his story in a humorous way, but I quite enjoyed it. 

I would describe his style as light humour with a dollop of satire. Agreeable though it is at first, for me personally it did start to become quite wearing. It`s also becomes apparent that later on in the story, an attempt at a change of mood as an innocent man faces possible execution, does not really work. 

The eventual solution of the case was quite unexpected, so you have to give him credit for that. 

A quick skim of the internet shows an overwhelmingly favourable response to this book, so please feel free to ignore me if you feel inclined to give it a try.

As regards, The Murder in the Rue Morgue, that is a much-loved short story that was genuinely ground-breaking in it`s day and many feel it marks the birth of the detective story as we know it. Sorry, but I`ve never liked it ! For me, the eventual solution of the case is quite ridiculous and undermines the rest of the story. 

Once again, though, others feel very differently about it, so don`t let me deter you from giving it a whirl.