Marilyn's Musings

Conjuring the puzzle-mystery is a magic trick. The impossibility of a solution is merely an illusion and, when the reveal is made known—if the piece is well-written—the solution seems obvious, a perfect fit. It is up to the author, i.e., the magician, to provide the misdirection and the entertainment along the way. This is most apparent in "locked room" mystery plots. Here, the crime seems to violate the laws of nature. For example, take one of the murders in the classic, The Three Coffins by John Dickson Carr. It has just begun snowing. A man in a heavy overcoat walks out of his living quarters and into an alley. Several passersby hear a gunshot and within seconds they arrive at the entrance to the alleyway where they see the victim collapse face first. The puzzling part is that the victim was shot from up-close as evidenced by powder burns on the back of his coat where the bullet entered. And yet, there is no perpetrator nearby and the only footprints in the snow ...