Born in London in 1864 to immigrant parents, Israel Zangwill was a popular author of novels, stories, plays, and essays on both Jewish and non-Jewish themes. He became a leading proponent of Zionism in its early years, but broke with the movement to found one devoted to establishing a Jewish homeland somewhere other than Palestine. He also wrote an immensely popular mystery novel entitled The Perfect Crime, now re-released by HarperCollins. Jenni Frazer writes:
[A]nyone acquainted with the crime and thriller genres is certain to be familiar with Israel Zangwill. His modestly titled book, The Perfect Crime (later re-titled The Big Bow Mystery), is renowned throughout the world of detective fiction as the first full-length “locked-room” mystery novel. A man with no apparent enemies is found dead in a locked room—and the police can’t figure out “whodunit” or, more to the point, how. . . . The Perfect Crime, like many of Dickens’s novels, was serialized in the newspaper over just two weeks, causing hundreds of readers to write in offering their own solutions. . . . Zangwill’s follow-up to The Perfect Crime was his 1892 novel, Children of the Ghetto, which won him international acclaim.
Read more on Times of Israel: http://www.timesofisrael.com/early-zionist-thinkers-whodunnit-republished-by-harpercollins/