The locked room mystery is a sub-genre of detective fiction in which a crime—almost always murder—is committed under apparently impossible circumstances. The crime in question typically involves a crime scene that no intruder could have entered or left, e.g., a locked room. Following other conventions of classic detective fiction, the reader is normally presented with the puzzle and all of the clues, and is encouraged to solve the mystery before the solution is revealed in a dramatic climax.
To investigators of the crime, the prima facie impression almost invariably is that the perpetrator has vanished into thin air. The need for a rational explanation for the crime is what drives the protagonist to look beyond these appearances and solve the puzzle.
Read more about Locked Room Mystery: History of The Genre, Examples, Authors and Works, Radio, Television and Film, Pulp Magazines, Comic Books/graphic Novels, True Crimes
Famous quotes containing the words locked, room and/or mystery:
“It is difficult for the common good to prevail against the intense concentration of those who have a special interest, especially if the decisions are made behind locked doors.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Anybody who knows the difference between the kind of conversation you have walking in the woods and the kind of conversation you have between the segments of a show on Nickelodeon can tell you that quality time exists. Quality time is when you and your child are together and keenly aware of each other. You are enjoying the same thing at the same time, even if it is just being in a room or going for a drive in the car. You are somehow in tune, even while daring to be silent together.”
—Louise Lague (20th century)
“The Heavens. Once an object of superstition, awe and fear. Now a vast region for growing knowledge. The distance of Venus, the atmosphere of Mars, the size of Jupiter, and the speed of Mercury. All this and more we know. But their greatest mystery the heavens have kept a secret. What sort of life, if any, inhabits these other planets? Human life, like ours? Or life extremely lower in the scale. Or dangerously higher.”
—Richard Blake, and William Cameron Menzies. Narrator, Invaders from Mars, at the opening of the movie (1953)