Here’s another locked room mystery that is as compelling a page-turner as anything you will find in the current day. Both Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr have extravagantly praised this novel, and justifiably so. When I read this book, I was already familiar with Leroux from his more famous novel The Phantom of the Opera. But I will stake the perhaps controversial claim that The Mystery of the Yellow Room is even better than that classic story. Two sleuths compete with each other to solve a seemingly unsolvable crime—a locked room mystery that matches amateur detective Joseph Rouletabille against France’s most famous investigator Frédéric Larsan. Leroux initially published this novel as a magazine serial, and managed to keep the surprises coming at regular intervals for the full duration of his novel. The only unsolved mystery at the conclusion is why this story hasn’t been adapted for American audiences in a full-length movie or miniseries (although several French films have been based on it).