Written at a time when Theodore Roosevelt promoted a liberal immigration policy, this play of an Anglo-American writer has become synonymous with the American immigrant experience. In The Melting Pot, Israel Zangwill (1864-1926) delivered the message that America "is God's crucible, the great melting pot where all the races of Europe are reforming." The Melting Pot opened in Washington D.C. with President Roosevelt attending. This drama is not out-dated, especially with immigration policy issues once again at the forefront of the American political scene.

This may be the very first locked-room mystery in history. It's merit lies in its unconventionality: the locked-room, which is literally sealed, the identity of the murderer and how the murder is done. Readers may find that some locked-room mysteries by later masters such as Leroux and Carr bear the very hallmark of Big Bow Mystery. Despite the historical value, the story itself is very primitive. The narrative is still pre-Doyle style, where the author is more interested in telling a strange tale rather than in introducing the art of detection. The motive of constructing a locked-room is childish if not insane. Unlike Carr, the author didn't carefully study why the far-fetched "locked-room murders" come into being.

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.