The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries

Starred review from August 25, 2014
Penzler’s thoughtful introduction makes plain why this intelligently assembled anthology of 68 short stories will be catnip for fair play fans, since the locked-room story “is the ultimate manifestation of the cerebral detective story.” He also notes that while the tales are “astoundingly inventive,” disappointment will be inevitable when the solution is revealed, “just as explanations of stage illusions exterminate the spell of magic.” Despite that caveat, Penzler has assembled a wide-ranging collection of the impossible, including murder in sealed environments or by an invisible killer who leaves no footprints in the sand or snow. There are entries by familiar masters of the subgenre—John Dickson Carr, Clayton Rawson, Edward Hoch—as well as by mystery writers better known for other kinds of stories—Dorothy L. Sayers, Erle Stanley Gardner, Georges Simenon, Dashiell Hammett—and even a straight detective story from P.G. Wodehouse. The real treat is in the revelations of the gifts at misdirection from undeservedly obscure authors such as Julian Hawthorne (Nathaniel’s son), J.E. Gurdon, Augustus Muir, and Vincent Cornier, whose ingenious work is less likely to be encountered in other anthologies.

October 1, 2014
Purists be warned: This latest XXXL-sized anthology from veteran editor Penzler (The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, 2013, etc.) should really be titled The Black Lizard Big Book of Impossible Crimes. Not that fans of the most distinctive strain of golden-age plotting will be disappointed, for even if locked rooms appear in only a fraction of these 68 reprints, here is God's plenty. After they skip the seven endlessly anthologized entries by Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jacques Futrelle, Melville Davisson Post and Lord Dunsany, readers will be able to choose among shootings from Agatha Christie to Bill Pronzini, stabbings from R. Austin Freeman to John Lutz, disappearances from E.C. Bentley to H.R.F. Keating, impossible thefts, impossible poisonings, and no fewer than six stories featuring corpses found in the sand or snow with no footprints indicating the presence of a killer. Penzler, who provides introductions to every story, includes one by John Dickson Carr, the acknowledged master of the genre, one by his alter ego Carter Dickson, and three by his most prolific disciple, Edward D. Hoch. Nostalgia buffs will be reunited with Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, Clayton Rawson and Edmund Crispin, along with ancient debut stories by Judson Phillips (aka Hugh Pentecost, who's also represented) and James Yaffe. More adventurous explorers will find that writers as diverse as P.G. Wodehouse, MacKinlay Kantor, Dashiell Hammett, Erle Stanley Gardner, Leslie Charteris, Georges Simenon, William Irish, Fredric Brown, Lawrence Block and Stephen King have all in their time created impossible crimes and solved them neatly. And that's the biggest limitation of this behemoth collection: Unlike locked-room novels, which can pleasurably tease readers for hundreds of pages before taking them behind the curtain, short stories barely have time to lay out the impossible circumstances before the solution is due. Better not subject yourself to more than one or two of these parlor tricks at a sitting. However fast or slow they go, however, connoisseurs of this eccentric, demanding form will find this an indispensable resource, a pearl beyond price.

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September 17, 2007
This impressive anthology of pulp-era crime stories from veteran editor and publisher Penzler reveals not only tales with surprising staying power but also some of high literary quality. To be sure, there are some selections sure to offend modern sensibilities and others whose extravagant prose now comes across as laughable or ludicrous. But aside from questions of quality and taste, these tales laid the foundation for most branches of the crime fiction genre as we know it today. Raymond Chandler's “Red Wind” is as effective now as it was when published in 1938. An unexpected treat is “Faith,” a previously unpublished Dashiell Hammett story. Multiple offerings from Erle Stanley Gardner, Hammett, Chandler and Cornell Woolrich add luster. Divided into three sections—the Crimefighters, the Villains, the Dames—with cogent intros by Penzler to each entry, this comprehensive volume allows the reader to revisit that exciting time when the pulp magazines flourished and writers pounded out fiction for a penny a word or less.

Starred review from August 9, 2010
Let's put it straight, like a fist in the face: this treasure trove of more than 50 stories and novels offers the best value ever for fans of hard-boiled detective fiction. In the pulp magazine Black Mask (1920–1951), Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler made their bones, with Erle Stanley Gardner and other heavyweights at their heels. As Penzler (Agents of Treachery) notes in his intros to each selection, an amazing number of these writers moved on to movies and TV. Highlights include the complete The Maltese Falcon, the original version from the pulp, unreprinted for 80 years. (Hammett made a couple of thousand changes for the hardcover novel.) The novel Rainbow Diamonds, featuring Raoul Whitfield's Filipino detective Jo Gar, appears in a book for the first time. The iconic story "Sail" by Lester "Doc Savage" Dent shows up in a variant draft, preferred by the author. The only way Penzler can top this one—a bigger book of Black Mask!