Locked room mysteries are always intriguing for the ingenious ways clever writers (because of or in spite of events of real life cases) find ways to cover their tracks, leaving a victim in the bizarre case of a room neither accessible by door or window but no killer in sight! These are 14 short American mystery writers' solutions to the problem and well worth reading. Edited by Otto Penzler, the famous proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City.

Great collection of locked room mysteries from the Golden Age. Readers who enjoy fair play puzzles and locked room mysteries will enjoy diving into this collection, which features a solid mix of well-known and lesser-known writers.

This quality of stories in this anthology varies quite a bit. There are some real gems in here but others feel like they are padding to fill out the page count while sticking to the theme.

A delightful book of mysteries from some of our favorite mystery authors. Very enjoyable fun to revisit these tales.

A great collection of fourteen locked room mysteries by a range of some of America's finest crime authors.
Lots of fun had assessing the crime, the plots and trying to figure out the clues.
My thanks go to Netgalley for providing this arc in return for a honest review.

Puzzles? Ciphers? Unexplainable escapes? If these appeal to you, and check the box for your reading preferences, grab this book, settle back in your favorite nest, put your feet up and read this collection of fourteen tales. These are authors who, between the world wars, offered their readership posers that are not easily untangled, and require a reveal. Stories range from quaint to eerie to noir-ish, and can be read all at once, or as I did, one at a time - to ponder and roll over in my mind.

My favorites were House of Haunts, by Ellery Queen, Exact Opposite, by ES Gardner, and Calico Dog, by MG Eberhart. The tales will sweep you back in time, and offer an evening with the classics. . .for me that was a lovely way to welcome Autumn in. . .

A Sincere Thank You to Otto Penzler, ed, Penzler Publishers and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review! #GoldenAgeLockedRoomMysteries #NetGalley

Great little collection for mystery lovers!
Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy in exchange for my honest feedback.

Fun & great collection of multiple locked room stories!

It was nice to read a plethora of different stories from multiple authors of one of my favourite genres.

Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC!

Classic crime is a genre I have much love for yet find myself reading in increasingly small doses. My interest in the genre seems not to have stemmed past the most notorious of names, as well. This anthology was the perfect excuse to sample new names and to dive into the genre for small periods and one story at a time. I found all to be solid inclusions and loved puzzling out the crime and criminal responsible, along with the help of detectives and sleuths.

I was delighted to receive a complimentary ARC that allowed me to read this ‘golden age’ crime compendium edited by Otto Penzler. From the fourteen stories assembled here, I had only been familiar with Ellery Queen, and the House of Haunts, set on atmospheric Long Island, did not disappoint. From there, I made it onto John Dickson Carr’s The Third Bullet which surprised me most by its length (it is more novella than short story), and after that there were still a dozen of other stories by hitherto unknown-to-me North American writers to explore. Although all of the stories are undoubtedly ‘of their time’ and the ‘locked room’ device has been used in hundreds of stories and full-length thrillers since, this collection of stories was hugely enjoyable, with each author represented here deserving a new readership. Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the free ARC that allowed me to discover these authors!

I always trust the discerning tastes of Otto Penzler, and this is yet another brilliantly curated treasure trove of classic mysteries. If you love a classic locked room mystery, this collection is a gift that keeps on giving. Can't wait for more historically significant and bang-up mystery collections from Penzler.

I've always been a fan of an anthology, a group pf short stories tied together by a unique theme, such as locked room mysteries. This anthology is special in that it contains stories written by some of the greatest mystery writers of the "golden" era. Written when there was no technology to help them figure how the victim was killed in a room locked from the inside......readers had to read carefully to catch clues or outsmart some very clever crooks. Their style is unique to the writer, you won't find Erle Stanley Gardner's dedicated investigators anywhere else. I so enjoyed these stories. Read with an eye to the past and you will too.

I love collections like this. These stories are all “locked room” mysteries, where a murder is committed in circumstances under which it was seemingly impossible either for someone to commit the crime or to evade detection. The list is a who’s who of Amerian mystery authors from the era.

Anthony Boucher — Elsewhere
Frederic Brown — Whistler’s Murder
John Dickson Carr — The Third Bullet
Joseph Cummings — Fingerprint Ghost
Mignon G. Eberhart — The Calico Dog
Erle Stanley Gardner — The Exact Opposite
MacKinlay Kantor — The Light at Three O’Clock
C. Daly King — The Episode of the Nail and the Requiem
Stuart Palmer — The Riddle of the Yellow Canary
Ellery Queen — The House of Haunts
Clayton Rawson — From Another World
Craig Rice — His Heart Could Break
Manly Wade Wellman — Murder Among Magicians
Cornell Woolrich — Murder at the Automat

Some I enjoyed more than others. Surprisingly, Carr’s The Third Bullet was my least favorite – too long, and rather boring compared to the others. My favorites might have been the ones involving magicians, something about the mix of magic and murder.

Overall, the stories are clever and satisfying.

“Among aficionados of detective fiction, the term “locked room mystery” has become an inaccurate but useful catchall phrase meaning the telling of a crime that appears to be impossible. The story does not require a hermetically sealed chamber so much as a location with an utterly inaccessible murder victim. … “

My thanks to Penzler Publishers for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries’ edited by Otto Penzler.

This anthology is part of the publishers’ excellent American Mystery Classics series. It is edited and introduced by Otto Penzler. He also provides a short introduction for each of its fourteen authors and the stories selected, providing biographical details and publication history.

In discussing the attraction of the ‘locked room mystery’, Penzler writes: “It is not realistic and was never intended to be. It is entertainment, as all fiction is . . . or should be. Dorothy L. Sayers pointed out that people have amused themselves by creating riddles, conundrums, and puzzles of all kinds, with the apparently sole purpose being the satisfaction they give themselves by deducing a solution.”

I found the anthology well curated and a pleasure to read. Rather than read straight through, I read a few stories each day. All were good, rating between 4-5 stars. My favourites were Ellery Queen’s ‘The House of Haunts’, John Dickson Carr’s ‘The Third Bullet’, and Anthony Boucher’s ‘Elsewhen’, which cleverly blended mystery with science fiction.

The book is rounded out with suggested discussion questions and a list of the titles to date in the American Mystery Classics series, providing plenty of ideas for future reading.

I expect that this anthology will appeal to readers interested in seeing how various American Golden Age crime writers approached the ‘locked room’ mystery.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

John Dickson Carr may well have been the master of the locked room mystery, but he was hardly alone in writing in the genre. Many other either dabbled in the genre or used it as the primary focus of their writing. As you might be able to guess from this collection, given that it’s the American Mystery Classics range, many of those writers were American.

From John Dickson Carr to Ellery Queen, from Joseph Commings to Clayton Rawson, from Anthony Boucher to Cornell Woolrich, this weighty collection covers a vast number of authors – well, fourteen. But which are the best stories? And, more importantly, who is this collection aimed at?

Well, to answer the second question, it’s really for newcomers to the genre. I’ve already read a fair number of the stories in the collection in other such books, and while there were some new stories in here, by nature of such stories being classics, other people well-read in the genre may come away disappointed. This is rather short on undiscovered classics – not that it ever claimed that it was. This series is introducing new readers to lost authors and this is a great example of introducing fourteen of them.

So there’s some well known items here – John Dickson Carr is represented by The Third Bullet and Ellery Queen also gets a novella, namely The House Of Haunts aka The Lamp Of God. The former story is much better than the latter, and the latter also demonstrates that we are using “Locked Room” here as shorthand for “Locked Room And Impossible Mysteries”. The other must-read (if you haven’t already) is Off The Face Of The Earth, a vanishing from a phone booth under constant surveillance, by Clayton Rawson. His short stories are stronger than his novels, and I think this is the best of the lot. I’d go further and say this is my second favourite locked room short story – the first is the same as everyone else’s and rhymes with “The Mouse Was Hobbling Good“.

The rest of the book keeps the standard pretty high – The House Of Haunts is one of the weakest tales imho – but I do have to question opening the collection with Anthony Boucher’s Elsewhen. Yes, it’s a locked room – an inverted one, no less – but it’s so atypical, it probably belonged as the last title rather than the first. Hope it doesn’t put people off what to expect…

Anyway, well worth a look if you haven’t read most of the stories herein, especially if you’re a locked room/impossible mystery fan.

Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries is published by Mysterious Press on July 5th 2022. Many thanks for the e-review copy.

I found many of these stories too long and quite convoluted. I love Golden Age crime so really wanted to enjoy these but I just think they have not aged well. Thank you to Netgalley though.

I love short story collections and anthologies and Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries is a great collection of stories. Some stories I enjoyed more than others but the collection was a fun read that was very entertaining. As someone who is a sucker for locked room mysteries, this was such a fun read and left me wanting more!

The term "locked room mystery" is a catchall phrase used for crimes that appear impossible. The stories in this collection all fit into this description. They implement various scenarios, detective strategies and outcomes and are written by 14 authors in the years between the two world wars.
Of course, I enjoyed some stories more than others. But they all entertained me and kept me guessing. I also appreciated the author information that introduced each story and gave me insight into the writer's career, techniques and legacy.

Although dated, this collection of stories still has its charm. The authors are some of the greats of detective fiction, including Cornell Woolrich and John Dickson Carr. Although the stories are too short to fully develop the protagonists’ characters, they are entertaining and worth a read.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Golden Age Locked Room Mysteries is a collection of “impossible crime” mystery stories from the United States, some of which are set in a literal locked room. There are a good variety of tales with some well known authors and others which were new to me.

A recommended read for lovers of mystery and crime fiction.