Product Description

On a foggy day in the Big Bow District of London, Mrs. Drabdump becomes fearful for her lodger. She knocks several times at his door but no answer. She runs to Inspector Grodman and together they break down his door to find the pooor man lying in his bed with his throat cut. The door was locked from the inside. Thus begins Israel Zangwill's classic mystery. Written in 1891, Big Bow Mystery still retains its power to amuse and entertain, both as a clever mystery and a satire of Victorian London.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #514381 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 196 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Whodunit fans who prefer their murders mysteriously committed behind locked doors will appreciate this reissue of the first impossible crime novel, penned by the unlikely Zangwill (1864-1926)-better known during his lifetime as an ardent British Zionist-in the late 1890s. Widowed landlady Mrs. Drabdump and retired Scotland Yarder Grodman batter down a secured and bolted bedroom door to find Arthur Constant, a hero of the working classes, dead from a cut throat. After suicide is quickly ruled out, the puzzle captures the city's imagination, with theory after theory (some poking fun at Poe's solution to "The Murders in the Rue Morgue") floated in the press, until Grodman himself returns to the lists to try to clear the man condemned to death for the crime. The plot device has been used many times since, but Zangwill deserves credit for inventing it and enlisting it in an entertaining and timeless plot. With a sardonic style and vivid, Dickensian characterizations of Victoria-era London, Zangwill still appeals to contemporary readers.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

One of the earliest locked-room mysteries
Author Israel Zangwill wrote one of the earliest locked-room mysteries in "The Big Bow Mystery." A woman becomes discouraged when she cannot wake her new lodger. He is in his room, which has been locked from the inside. Despite her fervent knocks, she simply cannot wake him, and she hears no sounds from within. Convinced that her lodger has been murdered, she enlists the help of a celebrated ex-detective neighbor. He breaks down the door, and the lodger is found dead in his bed, his throat slit. The door was indeed locked from the inside, and the windows were similarly secured. Thus is the puzzle at the heart of one of the earliest (circa 1891) locked-room mysteries.

Zangwill has indeed included a masterful puzzle, though the story itself is somewhat problematic. The middle of the story is unnecessarily complex and confusing, and there is a bit too much devotion to politics. Still, the book is very accessible, and anyone with a fondness for the sort of "impossible" crime that John Dickson Carr (a.k.a. Carter Dickson, a.k.a. Carr Dickson) later made famous should read this early entry to the genre.

Note: I read the paperback book for this review and have not listened to the tapes.

Semi-decent mystery
Israel Zangwill did not write this novel to write a mystery, he wrote it to be a satire of Victorian England. The charecters are on dimesional at best, and completely unlikeable, even the detective. The solution for the mystery is belivable, but the reason for the impossible nature of the crime is completely unbelivable. Like the other reviewers have said, and I agree, the middle of the story is completely pointless, as are several of the charecters. But, it was the first locked room mystery novel, so I must give it some credit.

Historically significant and a great read
The fact that the mystery disappears after the second chapter in no way detracts from the joy of this book. From widowed boarding house attendants to freeloading artists to a detective that might as well be the anti-Sherlock Holmes, this is one of the funniest and meanest books to come out of the Victorian era.

Known primarily for Children of the Ghetto, Israel Zangwill was a Jewish Victorian writer with an eye for the foibles and idicoies of every day life. The mystery is not so much abandoned as seen from a societal basis. We have the glory hounds, the newspaper stories, the sensationalists, and the vendors who gather outside the scene of the murder to sell food to the tourists.

When the murderer is revealed, it's a bit of a letdown, but the trip from the beginning to the end is so enjoyable that you don't mind.