It’s really a simple matter. I maintain that at this point […] you have all the facts in your possession essential to a clear solution of the mystery.
The mystery writing team Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee (writing under the pseudonym Ellery Queen) used to include the above statement toward the end of their books. The idea was to give the reader time to consider the story’s clues and come up with a solution before moving on to the reveal in the final pages.
The gimmick was so popular that it spawned an anthology (pictured at left), published in 1938 by the Frederick A. Stokes Company.
You’ll find something similar in our Mystery Theatre episodes, where each segment ends with a challenge to evaluate the available clues before moving on to … [read more at The 21st-Century Scop].