A fourth floor room, a door locked with the key inside, no way in, no way out. Edgar Allan Poe is the true grandfather of the murder mystery. Decades before Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, Poe gave us C. Auguste Dupin, a man able to solve mysteries through observation and deduction.

This is fiction noir in the true sense, set in the dark back streets of 1840s Paris. The juxtaposition of Dupin's clear logic, and the insanity of the outside world make this a psychological thriller of the first rank.

Other stories in this book include "Murders in the Rue Morgue", "The Purloined Letter", "The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade", "A Descent into the Maelstrom", "The Raven", and "The Masque of the Red Death".