Diagnosis: Impossible

Satan himself would be proud of his ingenuity," John Dickson Carr said of Edward D. Hoch, today's major exponent of the Challenge-to-the-Reader detective story. The former President of the Mystery Writers of America and an Edgar-Award winner, Hoch is author of many classics featuring New England country doctor Sam Hawthorne, who in the 1920s and 1930s specialized in locked rooms and other impossible crimes. Diagnosis: Impossible begins with the tale of a horse-and-buggy that vanishes inside a covered bridge and continues with eleven other ingenious and atmospheric stories.