Banner Deadlines: The Impossible Files of Senator Brooks U. Banner

Master of the Impossible!

Joseph Commings (1914-1992) created one of the greatest investigators of locked rooms, impossible disappearances and other "miracle crimes" – the gargantuan, harrumphing Senator Brooks U. Banner. During his long career (Banner first appeared in the pulps in 1947), he investigated such crimes as murder at a séance where everyone is holding hands, a strange spectre causing death in the middle of a lake, a killing in a sealed glass case, and a murder by a sword which must have been wielded by a giant. The most extraordinary story of all is "The X Street Murders," in which the victim is shot in a guarded room and the smoking-gun is delivered, a few seconds later, in a sealed envelope next door.

This first collection of Senator Banner stories contains 14 cases solved by the buffalo-sized sleuth, including one co-written with Edward D. Hoch and another published for the first time.

Banner Deadlines is the 12th in the Crippen & Landru "Lost Classics" series. The collection is edited by locked-room expert Robert Adey; memoir of Joseph Commings by Edward DB. Hoch. The cover painting and layout are by Tom Roberts, and the Lost Classics design is by Deborah Miller.