Diagnosis: Impossible

Edward D. Hoch

5 ideas

1. The buggy that vanished inside the bridge

   In the first Dr Sam Hawthorne case, 'The Problem of the Covered Bridge' (set in snowy 1920s Northmont), a young man drives his horse and buggy into a covered bridge just ahead of Sam. Sam follows the fresh tracks in. The tracks enter the bridge but nothing comes out the far end, and the driver is later found murdered. It is the template for the series: an unbroken physical record, here snow, seems to prove that something could not have happened, and the solution attacks what the witness assumed the record showed.

2. Impossibility lives in the observer's assumption

   A crime looks impossible because the witness quietly supplies a premise that is false: what time something happened, who a figure was, or that an object stayed where it was seen. The solution never breaks physics. It finds the one unexamined assumption the whole 'impossible' picture rests on. To debug any baffling situation, list what you are assuming rather than what you have observed.

3. The country doctor as natural detective

   A rural general practitioner is let into every household, sees bodies first, and is trusted by all classes. That gives him legitimate access to evidence and testimony that an outsider or policeman would not get. Hoch uses the doctor's everyday role, not special training, as the reason the amateur keeps finding himself at the crime and being believed.

4. Period and place as puzzle constraints

   The puzzle then has to be solved by observation and reasoning. The closed community also keeps the suspect pool small and known to the reader, so the solution can be fair and still surprising. Choosing the setting is choosing which tools the solver is allowed to use.

5. One trick per story sustains the form

   An impossible-crime short story works best built around a single ingenious method, stated plainly, clued fairly, and revealed in a compact final explanation. There are no subplots to pad it.

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