The Key to Nicholas Street

by Stanley Ellin

Stanley Ellin's characters assuredly live. Here, as it happens, they live in respectable Nicholas Street, Sutton - scarcely three hours' drive from New York City. In fact the Ayres are recognizable as an average American family in every detail.

And the the attractive woman next door, an artist from the big city, meets a brutal, sudden death. One by one the members of the family recount their stories to the plodding police chief, and one by one the author pitilessly strips down their characters. So intimately are they entangled in the case that any one might have killed Kate Ballou.

Brilliant narraton and an artist's eye for human nature carry this crime story along no less than the passionate suspense in which the reader is held.

Genres: Mystery

200 pages, Paperback

First published April 18, 1952

About the author

Stanley Bernard Ellin was a mystery writer of short stories and novels. He won the Edgar Allan Poe Award three times and the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere once, and in 1981 he was awarded with the Mystery Writers of America's highest honor, the Grand Master Award.

Reviews

[Vicent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whodunnit intel·ligent, que enganxa. La traducció de Ramon Folch i Camarasa és millor que altres traduccions seues.

[Kelvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a 1952 book by American mystery author Stanley Ellin. The setting is in the fictional town of Sutton, New York in 1951. Sutton is a suburb of New York City and Nicholas Street is where the rich and famous families of this high-toned town live. The story is about the murder of a rich and successful artist called Katherine Ballou on Nicholas Street. The book is divided into five parts, with each part narrated from the first-person point of view of a different household member of the Ayres family. The book is very well written. The unique structure of the book is that it is a little bit like the famous Japanese movie Rashomon, one story told from multiple perspectives. However, unlike Rashomon, it is not four different contradictory views of the same event. Instead, the five perspectives here complement each other to move the story forward and constitute different pieces of the puzzle. The title of the book refers to one key piece of evidence: who had possession of the key to the victim’s house at the time of the murder. It can also be an allusion to what is really important in Nicholas Street, which turns out to be a street where appearance and suburban respectability is more highly valued than reality and decency.

Spoiler Alert. The five different sections of the book are told sequentially from the points of view of (1) the servant girl Junie, (2) the wife and mother Mrs. Lucille Ayres, (3) the husband and father Harry Ayres, (4) the adult daughter Bettina Ayres and (5) the adult son Richard Ayres. The Ayres family live on 161 Nicholas Street. Years ago, when Lucille first married Harry, his family business Ayres’ House Supplies was doing great and the Ayres family was one of the most prominent family in town. After the marriage, the business fortune declined as a bigger store has moved in, While the Ayres still have a decent living, the Ayres business is only a shadow of its former self. Over the years, Lucille has turned into a bitter and passive aggressive wife and mother and Lucille and Harry have stopped loving each other. When Katherine Ballou, a successful and rich artist in her 30s from New York City bought the house next door at 159 Nicholas Street, Harry and Katherine soon developed a friendship and later that turned into an affair. Katherine and Harry agreed Harry should ask Lucille for a divorce. When Lucille refused, the two lovers decided Harry should just leave Lucille and the two lovers will leave Sutton and move to New York City to live together. The argument between Harry and Lucille was overheard by their son Richard who, in an attempt to make her mother happy, decided to intervene. One night, Richard went over to Katherine’s house to try to convince her to leave Harry. That turned into a heated argument and Richard, in a moment of anger, broke Katherine’s neck. The ineffective local police chief Morten Ten Eyck erroneously concluded the murderer was a local working class boy Bob Macek. Bettina’s boyfriend Matthew Chaves, a beachcomber and a sponger, correctly concluded that it was Richard who has committed the crime. Matthew was a friend of Katherine and he wanted the truth to come out. Matthew beat up Richard and forced him to confess to murder in front of his whole family. What followed then was Lucille’s efforts to try to convince the family cover up the confession and let Bob Macek to be the fall guy. The rest of family, together with Matthew, convinced Richard to do the right thing and called the police to confess to the murder, even though it would mean destroying Lucille’s image of respectability.

The key theme of the book is an examination of how on that famous street of the rich and famous, appearances are much more important than reality; and the extent people will go to make neighbors feel they are upper class and everything are fine and respectable. For example, Mrs. Lucille Ayres, after she has been told her husband is having an affair with the neighbor Katherine Ballou and wanted a divorce so he can marry her, refused to give him the divorce. Lucille would rather allow the husband to continue the affair so long as they stay discreet and the neighbors do not know about it. Lucille’s concern was a divorce would make her look like a failure, contrary to her image as a very successful and happy upper-class housewife with a happy family. Similarly, after Lucille learnt that it was her son Richard who has murdered Katherine, her immediately concern was to try to cover it up so that the neighbors would not find out, which would make their family look less respectable, even though it mean the innocent Bob Macek would suffer.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

El problema d'aquesta història és que no funciona com a novel·la negra.
Tot i que hi ha una morta i un interrogatori no hi ha cap misteri. Per l'estructura de la novel·la, cinc narradors diferents que van donant explicacions de la seva relació amb la víctima i el que han fet les darreres hores, des de les primeres pàgines imagines qui és el culpable, la manera en què l'ha mort i els motius per fer-ho.
Ara bé, la manera en què ens mostra una societat tancada, plena de prejudicis, endogàmica en les seves relacions. Com ens narra la destrucció d'un matrimoni en aparença perfecta, però que viu en la mentida de les aparences. Això sí que resulta interessant i ben construït. Llàstima que l'autor no es decantés cap aquí per fer la novel·la, hauria resultat molt més interessant.

[Lucía · Rating 2 out of 5]

Es un buen libro, soy fanática de los policiales por lo que he leído muchos hasta el momento, dejándome con varias cosas para decir.
Me pareció muy bueno que los personajes tengan una gran exploración interior, con sus intereses y motivaciones y parte de su vida y como ven al mundo. Del policía podría presidir la verdad, no aporta mucho a la historia y no resuelve nada.
El final/ resolución no me gustó. Si bien esta bien llevado, es decir que no supe si verdaderamente era el hasta que terminó, siento que era bastante obvio ya que es al que menos profundización le dieron como personaje, lo que lo hacía bastante sospechoso.
Me pareció muy lento y que no llegaba a nada, debo admitir que casi me deja en bloqueo lector.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't remember buying this book, though I suspect I did it so fast I thought Ellin was Elkin and it was a completely different kind of work. I decided to read it because I needed a breather after the previous book I'd read. This turns out to be a murder mystery told from several different viewpoints - basically each of the suspects gets a few chapters to carry the story on or to drop in some important details we had previously missed.

This particular method is good for developing sympathy for all the suspects. Ellin is very good at getting into the mindset of each narrator, and I zoomed through this book trying to figure out what happened. The ending seemed a bit pat, but the journey to get there was a fine way to pass a few hours.

[Joaquim Alvarado · Rating 4 out of 5]

La col·lecció de novel·la negra "La Cua de Palla" va permetre la traducció al català d'interessants obres policíaques. És el cas d'aquesta, escrita a cinc mans i on la resolució de l'assassinat té el mateix interès que la descripció de la societat nord-americana dels anys 50, on el puritanisme i les aparences podien condicionar el dia a dia i el futur de les persones.

[Carles · Rating 5 out of 5]

M’encanta la primera persona i m’encanten les novel·les amb multi-narrador.
Aquesta novel·la l’he trobada excepcional.
Quina mestria la de l’autor!, per fer parlar cada personatge d'una manera diferenciada, segons la seva personalitat. Quina capacitat per copsar la psique de les persones!, per retratar el caràcter de cadascú: la senyora de la casa, el marit, la filla i el seu extravagant xicot, el fill, la criada i el seu promès, la veïna, el policia...

L’autor teixeix una trama on anem escoltant els pensaments i les explicacions dels esdeveniments per boca de cada personatge, cada qual sota el seu punt de vista, interessos i prejudicis. Això, junt amb les seves interaccions, anirà vestint un quadre polièdric on no tothom veu les coses de la mateixa forma, accions ―aparentment individuals― s'han entrecreuat i interconnectat les conseqüències.

Un cop llegida la novel·la, hem vist el film “À double tour” (1959), de Claude Chabrol.
No ens ha agradat. Es basa en la novel·la, però no li hem sabut trobar cap de les seves virtuts.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murder, class consciousness and domestic strife all clash in this short novel by Stanley Ellin, where a killing is seen and described from five different perspectives.
It is absorbing and smoothly written, building up to a climactic revelation that is darkly satisfying.

[Nora · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing is good enough, but killing off the most interesting character right away is always counterproductive in fiction. Also, a psychiatrist would have a field day with the representation of the maternal, and of women in general.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent and clever novel from the great Stan Ellin. Rashomon in suburbia.

[Regine]

Emotional.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...

[Conor Bateman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whilst not as original or gripping as his debut novel Dreadful Summit, Ellin's follow-up is a thrilling murder mystery that relies on structural over narrative tension. By having the murder of Kate Ballou, artist and outsider to the upper class neighborhood of Sutton's Nicholas Street, told through five different perspectives and voices, we see not only new information every section but also completely different characterisations of the main players.

For the most part, though, it was not the actual murder that made the novel interesting, in fact for the majority of the story Ballou's death was incidental to character development (including her own) and an overarching critique of the public image interwoven into wealthy suburban communities. The reveal, though, was clever, not because of any twist per se but because it hammered home Ellin's idea of the lie of the perfect American family and took a sleight but effective attempt at dealing with the seeming normalcy of psychopathy.

[Iblena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esta historia retrata la cara más oscura de una familia norteamericana de clase media alta de los suburbios; dónde mantener las apariencias y evitar ser el blanco de las habladurías de la comunidad es lo primero y la solidaridad y el amor filial ocupan un segundo plano.
Como retrato psicológico funciona muy bien, pero el nivel de suspense de la trama es muy bajo.
No obstante, se trata de la segunda novela publicada por Stanley Ellin, un autor considerado entre los maestros del género, que sin ser una obra redonda, ya desde los inicios de su carrera como escritor, muestra una gran habilidad para describir la condición humana.

[jaroiva · Rating 4 out of 5]

I když to není žádný "bezceleeer", je to příjemná oddychovka, ve které se dají najít kousky filozofie i hlubších významů, když se vám chce hledat.
Mám ráda tyhle staré dobré jednoduché detektivky z dob, kdy ještě byl svět v pořádku snad i v Americe a autoři nepotřebovali upoutat čtenáře detektivem s minimálně jednou poruchou. Ty, kde se děj ještě ubírá přímočaře a neřeší se mezitím alkoholické a jiné výstřelky vyšetřovatele. Navíc jsem si nevšimla, že by tam byl nacpaný nějaký pitomý product placement. Jaktože to dřív šlo i bez něj?

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A re-read from years ago -- mother and father, a young man and his sister, a beautiful neighbor and her friend, a "maid" and her young man, a key, the need to keep up appearances, a murder, the sheriff and a reenactment of the events before the murder -- and the solution -- enjoyable because it was well written and had an intriguing story.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: the murder of a rich woman causes a stir in Sutton NY. The police chief's job is to figure out whose biggest secret is murder.