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I fell in love with locked-room mysteries when I was a kid and tearing my way through Agatha Christie – And Then There Were None is a splendid example. It reawakened when I read Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane, and then again in college when I took a class on Noir/Hard-Boiled Fiction. We started with classics like The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, probably the earliest locked-room mystery, published in 1868, then to short stories in Black Mask magazine, and moved forward only to about the 1960s, where my professor believe noir to have ended. I tried hard to abuse him of that notion, and perhaps made some headway with books from publishers like Akashic Books and their series of city noir (Baltimore Noir, Brooklyn Noir, Tel Aviv Noir, etc.,) Bleak House Books, and of course, Hard Case Crime.
If you’re a fan of locked-room mysteries, do yourself a favor and pick up this tome. Included are such gems are Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” G.K. Chesterton, “The Invisible Man,” Dashiell Hammett, “Mike, Alec and Rufus” (“Tom, Dick, Or Harry,”) Stephen Barr, “The Locked Room to End Locked Rooms,” Bill Pronzini, “Where Have You Gone, Sam Spade?,” Erle Stanley Gardner, “The Bird in the Hand,” Dorothy L. Sayers, “The Poisoned Dow ’08” and many, many more.
This is an exceptional collection that Penzler has pulled together, and I highly recommend it to mystery fans.
12/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
BLACK LIZARD BIG BOOK OF LOCKED-ROOM MYSTERIES, ed. Otto Penzler. Vintage (October 28, 2014). ISBN 978-0307743961. 960p.
Posted by Stacy Alesi 
In the aftermath of the events at El Corazon, Carter and Mel are faced with the possibility of losing Lily altogether. Because Mel has already been turned, they know that Lily carries the same gene. The progression of the Tick virus has been slowed temporarily thanks to the medical team at El Corazon, but Carter knows the only way to save her is to find the cure. And the only way Carter and Mel can get the cure is to work hand in hand with the very people who betrayed them.
Ever since escaping the Farm and surviving the events that followed, Carter has been especially careful in protecting Lily. And it could be to the detriment of the rest of the survivors at Base Camp. So when Lily’s pregnant friend McKenna decides to head to Canada, Carter supports Lily’s wish to travel with her.
Life for Lily and her twin sister, Mel, has irrevocably changed. A viral outbreak has left much of the country’s population infected, mutated into creatures driven by bloodlust. They call them Ticks. And nothing is as tasty to a Tick as the hormonal blood of teens. The so-called solution was the creation of the Farms – facilities built to house and protect the nation’s teenage population. But Lily knows this is far from the truth. Instead of protecting the kids, the Farms collect and dole out their blood as food for the Ticks.
Tel Aviv police officer Anat Nachmias gets her first murder case when a young woman is found dead in her apartment. The victim is Michal Poleg, who worked helping African refugees settle into Israel.
Austrian detective Beatrice Kaspary lands an unusual case of grisly geocaching in this combination police procedural and fast paced thriller.
Natty spends a lot of time juggling her various responsibilities. With two teenage daughters and a busy hotel to run, it’s a lot for anyone to handle. But Natty has the help of her husband, Sean, and together they make it work. Then their eldest has to be rushed into surgery while on a trip to France. Natty wants to be by her side but worries about how her family and work will handle her being gone.
Okay, so I’m late to the party. It happens; not often, but it happens. Ordinary Grace is anything but ordinary; in fact it would not be an exaggeration to say it is extraordinary. A New York Times bestseller, School Library Journal Best Book of 2013, and as you probably know (or should know, especially if you follow me on Twitter) winner of the “EBAM” – Edgar, Barry, Anthony & Macavity awards for best novel, plus the Dilys Award and well, you get the idea. I did a little digging and could not find another mystery that had won this many awards. Closest I could find was Val McDermid, A Place of Execution (4 awards) & Dennis Lehane, Mystic River (4 awards) according to 
Emma Lewis is the perfect daughter; bright, pretty, and she also has a big heart. The Princeton sophomore moves to Spain for a semester abroad and halfway through makes the call home that is every parent’s nightmare; a young man from a prominent Spanish family has been stabbed to death in her apartment, and Emma is the prime suspect.
In spite of the fact that every new town and every new school offers Sofia a new chance to fit in, the constant moving makes it hard to make – and keep – friends. When her mother moves the family to a town literally called “Friend,” though, things start looking up.
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