Israel Zangwill’s The Big Bow Mystery (1892) holds a secure place in detective fiction history as one of the earliest locked-room mysteries — a genre it both pioneered and gently satirised at the same moment. A man is found murdered in his perfectly locked room with every window sealed from within, and the solution, when it arrives, is as delightfully audacious as the novel’s comic tone consistently promised it would be.
Witty, self-aware, and genuinely clever, it rewards readers who like their detective fiction served with a generous side of irony. Download this free EPUB and start looking for the way into the room.