The Big Bow Mystery

Widely regarded as the first full-length locked-room mystery, this 1892 novel opens with idealistic reformer Arthur Constant found dead in his London lodgings, his throat cut, every door and window bolted from the inside. A retired detective and a rival Scotland Yard man chase competing theories while the newspapers whip the public into a frenzy. Israel Zangwill treats the puzzle with sly wit, poking fun at journalism, radical politics, and the detective genre even as he plays the game straight. The ingenious solution set a pattern that writers have borrowed ever since. Compact, funny, and clever, it remains a genuine landmark of crime fiction. Read it free in this PDF and EPUB edition.