Locked Room Mysteries

September 21, 2023 5:26 PM

I just finished reading The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux. Please recommend some other clever locked room mysteries - any medium welcome.
posted by darchildre to Media & Arts (21 answers total)

Consider The Hollow Man/Three Coffins by John Dickson Carr. It contains no less than three locked room mysteries. As a bonus, Dr Gideon Fell breaks the fourth wall and explains the "rules" of the locked room mystery.
posted by SPrintF at 5:34 PM on September 21, 2023

Possibly you know this but John Dickson Carr's big thing was locked room mysteries. I think he wrote a bunch.
posted by less-of-course at 5:35 PM on September 21, 2023

TV Tropes offers a long list of Locked Room Mysteries. Check under Literature for books but they also list movies, TV, comic books and more.
posted by metahawk at 5:55 PM on September 21, 2023

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty is essentially a locked-room mystery in spaaaaace. (Skip the review if you don't want details.)
posted by wintersweet at 6:00 PM on September 21, 2023 [2 favorites]

"Too Many Magicians" is a locked room mystery in Randall Garrett's "Lord Darcy" series if you want a fantasy-flavored example.
posted by Nerd of the North at 6:17 PM on September 21, 2023

And if you're into Nazi Germany, in Prague Fatale Philip Kerr has his detective Bernie Gunther investigating a locked-room murder in Reinhard Heydrich's villa in Czechoslavakia. There's an extensive page about it at TV Tropes, speaking of.
posted by Rash at 6:22 PM on September 21, 2023

The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries should keep you busy for a while.
posted by dfan at 6:47 PM on September 21, 2023 [2 favorites]

I was gonna say Six Wakes.
posted by matildaben at 6:56 PM on September 21, 2023

Jonathan Creek is your guy. Every time he thinks he's just going about his business trying to design convoluted magic tricks someone shows up to ask him how to solve their locked room mystery.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 7:56 PM on September 21, 2023 [6 favorites]

There was a 20th century Japanese mystery tradition that paralleled the English one but is only now getting translated. And locked room mysteries are especially popular.

Try The Honjin murders which pays homage to The Yellow room.

Soji Shimadas Murder in the Crooked House and The Tokyo Zodiac murders are both really clever locked room mysteries.
posted by vacapinta at 1:50 AM on September 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

Rex Stout's novels The Silent Speaker and Too Many Cooks are almost-locked-room mysteries featuring Nero Wolfe & Archie Goodwin. And a blogger lists his faves here.
posted by diodotos at 7:27 AM on September 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

The Problem of Cell 13 by Jacques Futrelle
The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Arthur Conan Doyle
posted by ficbot at 7:33 AM on September 22, 2023

My understanding is the new movie "A Murder in Venice" is a locked room/house mystery; Poirot literally orders the house locked until the murder is solved.
posted by epj at 11:59 AM on September 22, 2023

Arsène Lupin solves at least one locked room mystery. Many of his adventures are available at Project Gutenberg.
posted by donpardo at 12:24 PM on September 22, 2023

Tade Thompson's Far from the Light of Heaven is another locked room mystery in spaaaaace. I'd also second Six Wakes. And add The Dead Mountaineer's Inn by the Strugatsky Brothers if you want yet another sci-fi (but not space) option.
posted by snaw at 3:58 PM on September 22, 2023

The series that starts with Gideon the Ninth is called "Locked Tomb" for more than one reason (there is a locked tomb in it, but the first book is also essentially a locked room mystery of the "groups of strangers in an isolated setting" variety).

The Soji Shimada books recommended elsewhere in these replies are also worth your time.
posted by verbminx at 6:26 PM on September 22, 2023

Perhaps The Murders in the Rue Morgue.
posted by abraxasaxarba at 6:48 PM on September 22, 2023

Now that I think about it, there are locked room episodes in some of Umberto Eco's novels, specifically The Name of the Rose and The Island of the Day Before, though the latter substitutes a becalmed ship for a locked room. The Demeter episode of Dracula/Nosferatu uses the same storytelling device.
posted by abraxasaxarba at 3:54 PM on September 23, 2023

The Sherlock Holmes adaptation starring Jeremy Brett is on YouTube. Several of the episodes (like The Speckled Band) are locked-room mysteries.

Mysterious Lotus Casebook (莲花楼) is a costume drama with some locked-room mysteries. It's available on Bilibili with English subtitles (first episode). The three main characters are Fang Duobing, an aspiring detective, Li Lianhua, a fake doctor who ends up working with Fang Duobing, and Di Feisheng, the leader of a demonic sect. Most of the mysteries concern allegedly supernatural events which are proved to be mundane.

- Episodes 1-2: Sets out the backstory concerning a fight between Li Xiangyi (greatest swordsman in the world) and Di Feisheng ten years earlier. Fang Duobing and Li Lianhua investigate the disappearance of a sect leader who's said to have ascended in front of all his disciples and left behind a sarira.
- Episodes 3-5: The duo investigate the death of woman whose body is found in a sealed courier box at the inn they're staying in, shortly after she appears to be alive to all the inn's guests.
- Episodes 6-8: more concerned with the series story arc. The duo infiltrate a group of grave robbers. The third main character, Di Feisheng, re-appears in the present.
- Episodes 10-12: Li Lianhua, Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng investigate the successive deaths of three brides at a manor house.
- Episode 13: focuses on the series story arc. Li Lianhua and Di Feisheng realise there's a mystery surrounding the events of ten years earlier.
- Episodes 14-16: Li Lianhua and Fang Duobing visit Jin Mantao, who's killed while locked inside a secured room. Their investigation is impeded by the imperial prosecutor's office.
- From episode 17: the show spends more time on the series story arc, resolving the mystery from ten years earlier, but there's another locked-room mystery in episodes 21 to 24 when their host is killed in his tower which is only accessible via a guarded rope.

Ancient Detective (侠探简不知) is also a costume drama. It's available on Viki. The main character is a detective and the show opens with a locked-room mystery that he solves over the first four episodes. I can't wholeheartedly recommend it because the final few episodes introduce a character who's portrayed as a homophobic stereotype, but I really liked the show up to that point. The character's portrayal is nuanced a bit by the end of the show, but YMMV on whether it's enough.
posted by aussie_powerlifter at 7:28 PM on September 23, 2023

Mod note: [btw, this post has been added to the sidebar and the Best Of blog]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:18 AM on September 24, 2023

If video games are all right, just about every entry in the Ace Attorney series has at least one locked room case.
posted by May Kasahara at 10:04 AM on September 24, 2023