I first discovered the Thinking Machine stories of Jacques Futrelle (1875-1912), one of the victims in the sinking of the Titanic, when I was in the fourth grade. I was smitten. This story was first published in 1907. Futrelle never says so, but I’ve always thought that the “S. F. X.” initials between the Thinking [...]

My favorite crime stories always involve the application of justice, and the more ironic it is, the better I like it. This little gem was written by the creator of Jeeves and Wooster in 1910. —JLW MISUNDERSTOOD by P. G. Wodehouse       The profession of Mr. James (“Spider1”) Buffin was pocket-picking. His hobby was revenge. [...]

In The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade famously says, “When your partner gets killed, you’re supposed to do something about it. Doesn’t matter what you thought of him.” The following story includes a crime, a trial, and an execution; as such I suppose you could call it a crime story. But the reason I chose it [...]

Here is the shortest Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle, and also probably one of the shortest novels ever written—for it was printed as a book in its own binding, containing 34 pages. It was written in 1922 for the library of Queen Mary’s Doll House, a sumptuous doll house built for the wife [...]

SOLVING A PICTORIAL MYSTERY Not all mysteries involve crimes. The painting below, called “The Linder Gallery”, attracted the attention of Michael John Gorman, curator of Trinity College’s Science Gallery in Dublin. He has written a book on it and created a website exploring it that you may peruse here. He provides a cursory explanation of [...]

The 400 YEAR-OLD SOLUTION by James Lincoln Warren My primary computer is temporarily occupied and I can’t use it to access the internet to provide a guest column today. When things return to normal, I will provide the Gentle Reader with new material worth reading. Until then, may I suggest checking out the following Medici [...]

Originally, the word novel was merely a synonym for novelty. Its application to literature comes to us courtesy of the Italian Renaissance author and humanist Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), who used it in the sense of “amusement” to represent an engaging tale—as with the century of short tales he wrote in his magnum opus, The Decameron, [...]