Before I say a single word about John Dickson Carr, lock all the doors. Secure the windows. Block any ventilation ducts. Let us get the conditions exactly right.Because the man whose work we are about to discuss is the Master of the Locked Room Mystery,the hideous crime committed in a sealed chamber or in some other location impossible to enter or leave.
The sealed chamber may be a room, a prison cell.a tomb,a bank vault and so on. Other locations include a ship or. in The Problem of the Wire Cage, a tennis court-the wire cage is a protected area with four high walls. A murder victim is found lying on the court with no footprints in me sand surrounding it. How did the killer get in and out of the cage? Can offers five different explanations, the most ingenious of which is that murderer donned a pair of ballet shoes and made his way along the white basreline on his points before committing the crime,later making his escape by the same balletic route.
Imagine,if you will, Arnold Schwarzenegger playing the villain in a film version of this novel and having to turn himself into a baller dancer to commit this perfect crime. What works superbly on the page would simply not work in visuel terms.