Maxim Jakubowski - The Book of Extraordinary Impossible Crimes and Puzzling Deaths: The Best New Original Stories of the Genre

Coral Gables

At the heart of most crime stories, there is a mystery: whodunit, whydunit, howdunit? A challenge not only to the investigating character, be he a professional cop or an amateur everyman, but also to the reader, who races along the pages to the end of the novel or story not only to witness that the bad guy (or gal) gets his or her just deserts, but to find out how the sleight of hand is explainedalways in the hope they will deduct matters early in their read or to get confirmation of their suspicion. Its a well-worn formula that we never tire of, whether in the context of the civilized crimes of the worlds of Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and many of the unforgettable exponents of the Golden Age of crime writing, or amongst the rougher, hardboiled school of writing characterized by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, whose practitioners today still thread clever variations with an inventiveness we can on ly admire.

Within this category, there is also a thriving subgenre which focuses with laser-like precision on what is generally called the impossible crime, often typified by locked room murders. Crimes that, at first appearance, defy all expectation once you banish the supernatural to the wings. There is a body in a room, it is locked from the inside, all exits, windows, and such have not been breached How in hell did the murderer escape, and if he wasnt actually in the room, how was the crime committed? From Edgar Allen Poe and Sherlock Holmes on to undoubted classics like Gaston Lerouxs Mystery of the Yellow Room, Hake Talbots Rim of the Pit, and countless others (including the majority of John Dickson Carrs fiendish novels, written as both himself and Carter Dickson), the imagination has been stretched to the limit to come up with logical explanations. There is actually a reference book by Robert Adey, which offers over four hundred pages a surfeit of such quandaries and explains the hundreds of fictional impossible crimes away (a volume not recommended for those who avoid spoilers). The locked room murder genre has always been a challenge to crime mystery writers, and thrives to this day all over the world (the French author Paul Halter writes only such books!), and its success has never wavered. Many of the contemporary and past stars of the genre have, almost as a matter of principle, risen to the task brilliantly, as if it were a personal Everest. It has even birthed several TV series along the same principle, including the recent BBC TV series Death in Paradise and Jonathan Creek.

To encapsulate an impossible crime in a short story as opposed to a novel is not just a mighty challenge, but also a devious plotting structural engineering feat, and that was the proposal I issued to several handfuls of todays most respected mystery writers. And they most definitely delivered the goods, in this third volume of our anthology series of the best in contemporary crime writing. Not all came up with specific locked room murders, but each death is particularly puzzling, to say the least, and its a daily wonder to me how, despite the heavy heritage in whose footsteps they follow, they have succeeded in coming up with more imaginative variations and improvisations on the theme and allowed their little gray cells to run riot for your reading pleasure, in a pleasing diversity of settings and timelines. Crime writing is most definitely alive and well

Enjoy!

They make a handsome couple, the man murmured, as the band struck up The Lullaby of Broadway.

He was addressing a woman in her late thirties, darkly glamorous in a sequined gown. She sat alone at the back of the grand ballroom on the Queen Mary. Turning her head, she considered the mans long hair, carelessly knotted bow tie, and soft, almost feminine features. Her red lips pursed in distaste.

I beg your pardon? she said, in an accent unmistakably Italian.

He gave an extravagant bow and said, Please excuse me, signorina. I have a dreadful habit of thinking aloud.

A dangerous habit, perhaps.

The mans mischievous smile suggested he was not easily abashed. Once again, I must apologize. I was watching Cynthia Wyvern and her charming companion. They dance divinely, dont you agree?