Bizarre Murders

by Ellery Queen

This omnibus contains three Ellery Queen The Siamese Twin Mystery, The Chinese Orange Mystery, and The Spanish Cape Mystery

Hardcover

First published June 1, 1962

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

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always loved the Ellery Queen books - my dad used to get the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine every month. This contains three mysteries, one in a fantastic setting of a house on top of a hill surrounded by advancing forest fires, one where everything on the corpse and in the room was inexplicably turned backwards, and one involving a naked man in a cape. (dead). The language and a lot of the attitudes and mores are quite dated but it was a very entertaining read indeed.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The dialogue can be a bit arch, but these are 1930's detective stories, so that's part of the fun. Ellery Queen lets you know when you have all the clues you should need and the pieces always all fall into place. Plus, he drives a Duesenberg!