Adult/High School-A labor leader is found dead in his bedroom, his throat slashed. The door is locked and bolted from within, as are all the windows, and there is no sign of a weapon. Suicide seems impossible, yet so does murder. How, after all, could the murderer have left the room? Written and published in 1891, The Big Bow Mysteryis the earliest locked-room mystery novel, and a delight to read even 100 years later. Set in Victorian London, this puzzle story features Dickensian characters-Mrs. Drabdump the landlady ("whom fog did not depress. She went about her work quite as cheerlessly as usual"), Denzil Cantercot the poet ("Life was very serious to him. He never wrote comic verse intentionally"), and Peter Crowl the cobbler ("Crowl was a thinker, or thought he was-which seems to involve original thinking anyway"). The author's dry wit and satiric view of human nature will appeal to teens who have enjoyed Gulliver's Travelsor Candide, as well as to those looking for a humorous mystery.-Sandy Schmitz, Berkeley Public Library, CA
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