The Perfect Crime

by Ellery Queen

With $250,000--of somebody else's money--in his pocket, Ellery had the time of his life buying in the famous Garten book collection as it was auctioned off. But the fun didn't last long, for before evening John Mathews, who had been responsible for Garten's ruin, was found murdered. And neither the book collector, nor the dead man's nephew, Walter, who was engaged to Garten's daughter, had any kink of an alibi.

Genres: Mystery, Detective

197 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

aka Barnaby Ross.
(Pseudonym of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee)
"Ellery Queen" was a pen name created and shared by two cousins, Frederic Dannay (1905-1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905-1971), as well as the name of their most famous detective. Born in Brooklyn, they spent forty two years writing, editing, and anthologizing under the name, gaining a reputation as the foremost American authors of the Golden Age "fair play" mystery.

Although eventually famous on television and radio, Queen's first appearance came in 1928 when the cousins won a mystery-writing contest with the book that would eventually be published as The Roman Hat Mystery. Their character was an amateur detective who used his spare time to assist his police inspector father in solving baffling crimes. Besides writing the Queen novels, Dannay and Lee cofounded Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, one of the most influential crime publications of all time. Although Dannay outlived his cousin by nine years, he retired Queen upon Lee's death.

Several of the later "Ellery Queen" books were written by other authors, including Jack Vance, Avram Davidson, and Theodore Sturgeon.

Reviews

[Tommy Verhaegen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een typische Queen met Ellery in de hoofdrol. Een moord (dat moet nog bewezen worden) en een beperkt aantal verdachten. Het slachtoffer is een slecht mens dus daar ligt niemand van wakker. De verdachten hebben schijnbaar een alibi. Dus Ellery staat voor grote problemen. Daar komt nog bij dat de meeste verdachten erg sympathiek zijn, 1 is zelfs een persoonlijke vriend van Ellery. Diens arrestatie leidt dan ook tot een conflict tussen vader en zoon Queen.
De cover is niks bijzonders buiten de naam Ellery Queen dan, die bij liefhebbers van het genre klinkt als een klok.
Het is een whodunit die het opbouwen van een minutieus tijdsoverzicht combineert met het ontmaskeren van een aantal valse aanwijzingen. De neven die achter het pseudoniem Ellery Queen (de schrijver) schuilgaan hebben veel talent en het is weer een spannend en psychologisch sterk verhaal geworden.
Het verhaal speelt zich af in New York en een belangrijk bijfiguur is een chimpansee.

[JoAnne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am only giving a review because of the "golly gee whiz". Not one 4 letter word. Had this book been written today it would sound totally different. It could have been a "Murder She Wrote" movie. I am old enough to remember Jim Hutton when he played Ellery Queen on tv and I adored him. He was absolutely perfect for the part. And it was MY paperback that I bought in a little bookshop where I bought all my paperbacks at that time (1968). I would read on the NYC Subway going to work. Paper is brittle and I still smell of the "oldness" of this book. So fond memories, all around. Would I recommend to die-hard mystery/crime fans, no. For fun, absolutely yes. a very quick read. And if one has time, do research "Ellery Queen" on wiki. MORE fun about authors.

[Gabriele Crescenzi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Questo romanzo, tratto da un adattamento cinematografico ("The perfect crime"), è molto deludente dal punto di vista giallistico. Il delitto perfetto del titolo non l'ho ravvisato nella trama, trattandosi di un banale delitto con abbastanza indizi materiali per comprendere le dinamiche del fatto. Personaggi poco abbozzati, deduzioni molto scarse, tranne che per il finale, e una vicenda che già di per sé non desta l'interesse del lettore (nonostante la presenza bizzarra di uno scimpanzé in grado di "sparare", cosa a cui poi però non viene data la minima importanza, e a cui non viene fornita alcuna spiegazione) rendono questo libro facilmente dimenticabile. Dunque 2 stelle.

[Rick Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Major characters:

Ellery Queen, detective
Nikki Porter, his secretary
Walter Mathews, young millionaire
John Mathews, his uncle, a stock swindler
Carlotta "Aunty Carlo" Emerson, Walter's maiden aunt with the on/off accent
Togo, her pet chimpanzee
Arthur Rhodes, a lawyer, partner of John
Raymond Garten, rare book collector
Marian, his daughter, fiancée of Walter
Henry Griswold, his librarian

Locale: New York City

Synopsis:

Rich Walter Mathews comes to ask Ellery Queen for his help. His uncle, John Mathews, has swindled many people with oil well stock scams; including Raymond Garten, the father of Walter's fiancée, Marian Garten.

Raymond Garten, now broke, is forced to auction his beloved rare book collection. Altruistic Walter has an idea: He gives Ellery $250k to purchase the collection for him as a third-party, so Raymond will be unaware Walter is the buyer. He plans to give it to Marian as a wedding gift, so that it will stay in the Garten family and Raymond will be unable to refuse it. Ellery buys the lot and moves it to Walter's home; next door to the Mathews home.

No sooner has this been accomplished than John Mathews is found dead in his study.

Review:

This book is prefaced with "Based on the Columbia Motion Picture Ellery Queen and the Perfect Crime", an ominous admission that it was back-written from the movie - generally a bad sign, and one that the Queen authors (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee) had little to do with writing it. Eye-rolling continued when I find that one of the characters is a chimpanzee who has been taught how to shoot a gun (thought this sort of thing went out with Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue).

However, I was pleasantly surprised to find a respectable, concise plot; in the same vein as Queen's country-titled novels of the same era (Chinese Orange, French Powder, etc). My 1942 Grosset & Dunlap edition has a sketch map of the crime scene in Chapter 6 (p. 75), which is essential if you wish to figure out how the murder occurred, and careful study of the map itself may provide the answer for you.

A rather humorous aside is the conversations in which the investigators speculate 1). does a chimpanzee have fingerprints, and 2). if so, is it possible to take them?

[Tony · Rating 2 out of 5]

I grabbed this as part of a handful of old paperbacks to take on a beach trip, and tore through it in about two hours on a lounge chair. I don't think I've read any Ellery Queen books before, and I can't really see myself doing so after having this one. It's the kind of mystery that's more of an obscure logic puzzle than a story about real human beings. Basically, some rich guys are at odds over a shady oil stock deal that left one of them bankrupt. Ellery's friend is engaged to the daughter of the one who's now penniless, and when the nasty financier is shot to death, it's up to Ellery to clear his friend. It's a very contrived story -- the two families live next door to each other, and the solution depends very much on timetables, mistaken identities, and soforth. I was able to figure out who the killer was pretty easily, although I only got the motive and method partially correct. It definitely felt like a relic from a bygone era, and one that hasn't aged very well.

[Rel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the sort of book you pay 25 cents for at a thrift shop, and donate right back when you've finished. A decent enough mystery story, but as forgettable as any other in the endless sea of paperbacks.

While this book is two or three hours pleasantly spent if you happen upon it, by no means bother to seek it out.

[Bent Andreassen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in Danish

[Darinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Murder mystery. Quick, light read.

[Ronald · Rating 4 out of 5]

read SOMETIME in 2002