A complete practical guide for detective and mystery story writers of today. How to arrange, invent, plot out, develop and narrate ingenious, convincing, and baffling stories of crime. CONTENTS: CHAPTER I—THE ETERNAL CURIOUS

1. The Inquisition into the Curious is Universal
2. Early Riddles
3. The Passion for Solving Mysteries CHAPTER II—THE LITERATURE OF MYSTERY
4. The Rightful Place of the Mystery Story in Fiction
5. The Mystery Story Considered as Art
6. The Claims of Antagonists and Protagonists CHAPTER III—THE HISTORY OF MYSTERY
7. Ancient Mystery Tales CHAPTER IV—GHOST STORIES
8. A Working Classification
9. The Ghost Story
10. Famous Ghost Stories
11. The Humorous Ghost Story CHAPTER V—RIDDLE STORIES
12. Some Notable Riddle Stories
13. The Nature of the Riddle Story and Its Types CHAPTER VI—DETECTIVE STORIES
14. What Is a Detective Story
15. Rise of the Detective Story
16. The Detective—Fictive and Real
17. Fiction versus Fact
18. The Interest of the Detective Story
19. A Summing Up CHAPTER VII—THE DETECTIVE
20. The Real Detective and His Work
21. Fictive Detective Material
22. The Transcendent Detective
23. Pioneer Detectives of Fiction
24. Recent Detectives of Fiction
25. The Scientific Detective of Fiction
26. The New Psychology in Detective Stories
27. Other Types CHAPTER VIII—DEDUCTION
28. Ratiocination in Early Detective Stories
29. Deduction Used in Every-day Life
30. The Analytical Element in the Detective Story
31. Poe's Detective—The Prototype
32. The Detective in the Novel CHAPTER IX—APPLIED PRINCIPLES
33. The Detectives of Poe, Doyle, and Gaboriau
34. Individuality of these Detectives
35. The Real Sherlock Holmes CHAPTER X—THE RATIONALE OF RATIOCINATION
36. Sherlock Holmes' Method
37. Lecoq's Method
38. Other Methods
39. Holmes' Method Evaluated
40. The Inductive and the Deductive Methods
41. Two Striking Examples CHAPTER XI—CLOSE OBSERVATION
42. The Search for Clues
43. The Bizarre in Crime
44. The Value of the Trivial
45. The Tricks of Imitation CHAPTER XII—OTHER DETECTIVES OF FICTION
46. Some Original Traits
47. Two Unique Detectives CHAPTER XIII—PORTRAITS
48. Some Early Detective Portraits
49. Some More Modern Portraits
50. Some Less Known Portraits
51. Idiosyncrasies of Fictional Detectives
52. Favorite Phrases of Detectives CHAPTER XIV—DEVIOUS DEVICES
53. Snow and Rain
54. Some Particularly Hackneyed Devices
55. Devices Which Are Not Plausible CHAPTER XV—FOOTPRINTS AND FINGERPRINTS
56. The Omnipresence of Footprints
57. Other Miraculous Discoveries
58. Remarkable Deductions from Footprints
59. Fingerprints and Teeth-marks CHAPTER XVI—MORE DEVICES
60. Tabulated Clues
61. Worn-out Devices
62. The Use of Disguise
63. Other "Properties" CHAPTER XVII—FAKE DEVICES
64. The "Trace" Fallacy
65. The Destruction of Evidence
66. False Hypotheses
67. Errors of Fact and of Inference
68. The Use of Illustrative Plans
69. The Locked and Barred Room CHAPTER XV—MURDER IN GENERAL
70. Murder Considered in the Abstract
71. Murder as a Fine Art
72. The Murder Theme
73. The Robbery Theme
74. The Mysterious Disappearance CHAPTER XIX—PERSONS IN THE STORY
75. The Victim
76. The Criminal
77. Faulty Portrayal of the Criminal
78. The Secondary Detective
79. The Suspects
80. The Heroine and the Element of Romance
81. The Police 8. The Supernumeraries CHAPTER XX—THE HANDLING OF THE CRIME CHAPTER XXI—THE MOTIVE CHAPTER XXII—EVIDENCE
82. The Coroner
83. The Inquest
84. The Witnesses
85. Presentation of the Evidence
86. Circumstantial Evidence
87. Deductions from Evidence
88. Deductions from Clues
89. Evidence by Applied Psychology
90. Direct Observation
91. Exactness of Detail
92. Theories of Evidence CHAPTER XXIII—STRUCTURE
93. Length
94. The Short-Story and the Novel
95. Singleness of Plot in the Detective Story
96. The Question of Length
97. The Narrator in the Detective Story
98. The Setting CHAPTER XXIV—PLOTS
99. The Plot is the Story
100. Constructing the Plot
101. Maintaining Suspense
102. Planning the Story
103. The Question of Humor
104. Some Unique Devices CHAPTER XXV—FURTHER ADVICES
105. The Use of Coincidences
106. The Use of Melodrama
107. Dullness
108. Unique Plots and their Solubility
109. Women as Writers of Detective Stories CHAPTER XXVI—FINAL ADVICES
110. General Qualities of the Detective Story
111. Correctness
112. Names
113. Titles