Miraculous Misdeeds? Locked room crimes and their significance for humans (IANS Column: Bookends)

Why do we like crime? Like, that is, in the sense of why we are attracted to reports of lurid incidents in our newspapers and TV bulletins or WhatsApp forwards or YouTube channels or, for that matter, the relevance of a steady diet of good vs evil in almost every form of cultural expression religious or literary we were/are exposed to, and why for many book readers, mystery fiction is entrancing.

It is only the last facet that falls within the scope of this piece, and let us try to answer it before proceeding further.

There can be a few reasons why mystery fiction in its depiction, effect, and denouement of crime appeals to those who would themselves stick to the straight and narrow moral path in their own lives otherwise.

The first is the vicarious pleasure we get from 'overseeing' such a legal and/or moral transgression being conducted by someone else, and second, there is more vicarious pleasure from seeing the disorder engendered by a crime being dissipated, order restored, and the violator punished.

The third is more significant puzzles intrigue the human mind, and what can be more intricate puzzles than the "whodunits" or "howdunits" that make up the most of mystery fiction. For now, let us take up the second one, in its most baffling avatar the "locked room crime/mystery".

A staple of the genre, locked room crimes, usually murder, are those committed in circumstances under which it was seemingly impossible for the perpetrator to commit the crime, or evade detection, in entering/exiting the scene say, in the case of a person found deceased in a windowless room sealed from the inside. Like in other classic detective fiction, the readers are normally presented with all the clues, so as to solve the mystery before the solution is revealed in a dramatic climax.

A good locked room mystery provides pleasure from trying to solve the puzzle before it is revealed, and from a satisfyingly logical solution, but those that are not well thought-of, or properly executed or explained, will only lead to the reader feeling unsatisfied or cheated.

Also, they don't have to be murders or take place in locked rooms, but just be crimes that seem to be impossible at first glance, and give the impression that they were committed by a dangerous, supernatural entity who can defy natural/physical laws of nature by walking through walls or vanishing into thin air with solid objects like the murder weapon or valuables.

Some examples of the latter span from "King Ottokar's Sceptre"

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