The Leopold Locked Room is a short mystery story written by Edward D. Hoch. Leopold, a police captain is found in a closed locked room with his murdered ex-wife. Results show that Leopold's gun fired the fatal shot, but Leopold and readers know he's not the killer. Every bit of the story is cleverly though out. If you enjoy reading short mystery stories this is a great story to read.

Captain Leopold and Monica were once married. When Monica wanted to go pursuit her career and her dreams in California as an actress, Leopold refused to go with her because he just started on the police force and his future looked bright. Monica left him. Shortly after arriving in California and having no luck with the acting career she had a nervous
Monica told Captain Leopold, “Your going to know what I knew. Bars and cells and disgrace. Your going to know the despair I felt all those years ago.” She said just before she was shot. Moments later the doors were unlocked from the outside and Dr. Thursby rushed to Monica’s side, being the only doctor in the room everybody believed him when he said she was nearly dead. He later went in the ambulance with her on the way to the hospital. He rode in the back of the ambulance with her alone because everybody thought he was a licensed doctor. The climax was very interesting. The settings is very important to the story because the crime is committed in a locked, huge unfurnished square room. Which makes the reader keep guessing who could of done the crime, when it was only Monica and Captain Leopold in the locked room. The setting is in my opinion the best part. However, the locked room is not the only setting in the story,there were many others but it was the most interesting one. The style of the story is easy to read because it's told by a third point of view and kinda threw the eyes of Captain Leopold although the narrator does not appear to know more then Captain Leopold does about whats going on. It's very interesting and memorable. In conclusion, I personally really enjoyed reading this short mystery story because everything was cleverly thought out and it all pulled together perfectly. Every detail was written