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Ellery Queen Detective #Short Stories 1
The Adventures of Ellery Queen
In eleven ripping stories, the mystery genre's greatest sleuth shows his chops.
For Ellery Queen, there is no puzzle that reason cannot solve. In his time, he has faced down killers, thugs, and thieves, protected only by the might of his brain -- and the odd bit of timely intervention by his father, a burly New York police inspector. But when a university professor asks Queen to teach a class, the detective finds there are people whom reason cannot college students. Queen's adventure on campus is only the first of this incomparable collection of short mysteries. In these pages, he tangles with a violent book thief, an assassin who targets acrobats, and New York's only cleanly shaven bearded lady. Criminals everywhere fear him, whether they work in mansions or back alleys. No mystery is too difficult for the man with the golden brain.
For Ellery Queen, there is no puzzle that reason cannot solve. In his time, he has faced down killers, thugs, and thieves, protected only by the might of his brain -- and the odd bit of timely intervention by his father, a burly New York police inspector. But when a university professor asks Queen to teach a class, the detective finds there are people whom reason cannot college students. Queen's adventure on campus is only the first of this incomparable collection of short mysteries. In these pages, he tangles with a violent book thief, an assassin who targets acrobats, and New York's only cleanly shaven bearded lady. Criminals everywhere fear him, whether they work in mansions or back alleys. No mystery is too difficult for the man with the golden brain.
337 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1968
306 people are currently reading
689 people want to read
About the author
Ellery Queen
1,789 books490 followersaka 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.
(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.
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January 4, 2025
Ellery Queen Shorts #1
A review of the Mysterious Press eBook (February 5, 2013) of the Frederick A. Stokes hardcover original (1934) collecting various stories mostly written and published in the Redbook, Mystery, Great Detective Stories and Mystery League magazines during 1933-34.
[3.8 Average rating for the 11 stories, rounded up to a GR 4 star rating]
I had never read Ellery Queen previously, although the books are considered part of the American side of the Golden Age of Crime 1920-1940 which is usually associated with British writers such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. That era and sub-genre is one of my favourites so I took a chance on the first of the short story collections.
The cover of the latest edition as of 2023 of "The Adventures of Ellery Queen" as published under the American Mystery Classics imprint. Ellery Queen's pince-nez glasses are prominently shown. Image sourced from Goodreads.
I enjoyed these quite a lot. There was a definite hint of paying homage to Arthur Conan Doyle and his classic Sherlock Holmes stories. The title of the book echoes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes #3 - 1892) and some of the stories have subplots that hint back to certain Holmes cases.
The fictional detective Ellery Queen was both the story protagonist and the writing pseudonym of cousins Frederic Dannay (1905-1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905-1971). They wrote over 40 novels and short story collections under that name. After Lee's passing in 1971, Dannay retired from writing the series. The series has been adapted several times for radio and television. A mystery stories magazine in the same name was founded in 1941 and continues to this day as the bi-monthly Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
The following provides individual story ratings and synopses. They are setups only and do not reveal endings, so I have not spoiler blocked them.
1. The Adventure of the African Traveler ****. Ellery Queen agrees to mentor three criminology students. They all investigate a current case involving a business traveler who has recently returned from South Africa. The three students propose three different solutions, but Ellery Queen has a fourth solution in mind.
2. The Adventure of the Hanging Acrobat ****. The woman in a theatrical acrobatic duo has been murdered by seemingly being hung, although various other methods of murder would have been easier and were close at hand. There appears to be a clue from the way the rope is knotted.
3. The Adventure of the One-Penny Black ***. An extremely rare stamp has been stolen after a group of collectors were attending a showing at a stamp merchant. The culprit appears to have been a temporary worker for one of the collectors. This story has a subplot which echoes the classic Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle. Also, no one is murdered for a change.
4. The Adventure of the Bearded Lady ****. A doctor and amateur artist has been murdered in what appears to have been for a motive of financial inheritance. The only clue is that his final act was painting a beard on Rembrandt’s wife in a reproduction of a Rembrandt painting.
5. The Adventure of the Three Lame Men ***. A financial magnate appears to have been kidnapped at the apartment of his mistress. From a trail of muddy footprints on the floor it appears that the kidnappers were three lame men. Ellery Queen has a different theory.
6. The Adventure of the Invisible Lover ****. Ellery Queen to called in to try to clear an accused man of murder. His solution requires going to rather extreme lengths in a graveyard where the victim is buried.
7. The Adventure of the Teakwood Case ****. Murder occurs at an apartment building where there have been a series of jewelry thefts. Ellery Queen realizes there is a clue from the victim’s teakwood cigarette case.
8. The Adventure of the Two-Headed Dog *****. Ellery Queen takes shelter at the Two-Headed Dog Inn and Cabins while travelling to visit a friend. He hears the story of how one of the cabins is haunted ever since a jewel thief stayed there. But then a murder occurs that very same night with Queen on hand to solve it. I especially enjoyed this one due to its allusions to Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles.
9. The Adventure of the Glass-Domed Clock **** The proprietor of a gem and curio shop is found bludgeoned to death in his store. Before he died he managed to crawl to a display case and grab an amethyst gem and to smash a glass-domed clock. Ellery Queen must figure out if those are clues to the murderer’s identity.
10. The Adventure of the Seven Black Cats *** Ellery Queen goes to a pet store hoping to buy an Irish Terrier and ends up deducing a murder at a nearby residence when told of a recluse who has bought a similar black cat a week for the past seven weeks. Jodi, if you are reading this, please avoid this one as it is disturbing about the fate of the cats. Trivia: There is a character named Harry Potter in this one!
11. The Adventure of the Mad Tea-Party **** Ellery Queen attends a friend’s family children's birthday gathering out on Long Island where the adults are planning a play of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party to entertain the children who will attend. But on the night before the party, the host disappears and then a mysterious set of parcels begin to be delivered but without a ransom note.
Trivia and Link
There is an Ellery Queen specialist site which provides extended information about the editions of The Adventures of Ellery Queen includes some detailed story discussions (Note: Some spoilers included). You can read it at Queen.Spaceports.com.
A review of the Mysterious Press eBook (February 5, 2013) of the Frederick A. Stokes hardcover original (1934) collecting various stories mostly written and published in the Redbook, Mystery, Great Detective Stories and Mystery League magazines during 1933-34.
[3.8 Average rating for the 11 stories, rounded up to a GR 4 star rating]
I had never read Ellery Queen previously, although the books are considered part of the American side of the Golden Age of Crime 1920-1940 which is usually associated with British writers such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. That era and sub-genre is one of my favourites so I took a chance on the first of the short story collections.
The cover of the latest edition as of 2023 of "The Adventures of Ellery Queen" as published under the American Mystery Classics imprint. Ellery Queen's pince-nez glasses are prominently shown. Image sourced from Goodreads.
I enjoyed these quite a lot. There was a definite hint of paying homage to Arthur Conan Doyle and his classic Sherlock Holmes stories. The title of the book echoes The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes #3 - 1892) and some of the stories have subplots that hint back to certain Holmes cases.
The fictional detective Ellery Queen was both the story protagonist and the writing pseudonym of cousins Frederic Dannay (1905-1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905-1971). They wrote over 40 novels and short story collections under that name. After Lee's passing in 1971, Dannay retired from writing the series. The series has been adapted several times for radio and television. A mystery stories magazine in the same name was founded in 1941 and continues to this day as the bi-monthly Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
The following provides individual story ratings and synopses. They are setups only and do not reveal endings, so I have not spoiler blocked them.
1. The Adventure of the African Traveler ****. Ellery Queen agrees to mentor three criminology students. They all investigate a current case involving a business traveler who has recently returned from South Africa. The three students propose three different solutions, but Ellery Queen has a fourth solution in mind.
2. The Adventure of the Hanging Acrobat ****. The woman in a theatrical acrobatic duo has been murdered by seemingly being hung, although various other methods of murder would have been easier and were close at hand. There appears to be a clue from the way the rope is knotted.
3. The Adventure of the One-Penny Black ***. An extremely rare stamp has been stolen after a group of collectors were attending a showing at a stamp merchant. The culprit appears to have been a temporary worker for one of the collectors. This story has a subplot which echoes the classic Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle. Also, no one is murdered for a change.
4. The Adventure of the Bearded Lady ****. A doctor and amateur artist has been murdered in what appears to have been for a motive of financial inheritance. The only clue is that his final act was painting a beard on Rembrandt’s wife in a reproduction of a Rembrandt painting.
5. The Adventure of the Three Lame Men ***. A financial magnate appears to have been kidnapped at the apartment of his mistress. From a trail of muddy footprints on the floor it appears that the kidnappers were three lame men. Ellery Queen has a different theory.
6. The Adventure of the Invisible Lover ****. Ellery Queen to called in to try to clear an accused man of murder. His solution requires going to rather extreme lengths in a graveyard where the victim is buried.
7. The Adventure of the Teakwood Case ****. Murder occurs at an apartment building where there have been a series of jewelry thefts. Ellery Queen realizes there is a clue from the victim’s teakwood cigarette case.
8. The Adventure of the Two-Headed Dog *****. Ellery Queen takes shelter at the Two-Headed Dog Inn and Cabins while travelling to visit a friend. He hears the story of how one of the cabins is haunted ever since a jewel thief stayed there. But then a murder occurs that very same night with Queen on hand to solve it. I especially enjoyed this one due to its allusions to Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles.
9. The Adventure of the Glass-Domed Clock **** The proprietor of a gem and curio shop is found bludgeoned to death in his store. Before he died he managed to crawl to a display case and grab an amethyst gem and to smash a glass-domed clock. Ellery Queen must figure out if those are clues to the murderer’s identity.
10. The Adventure of the Seven Black Cats *** Ellery Queen goes to a pet store hoping to buy an Irish Terrier and ends up deducing a murder at a nearby residence when told of a recluse who has bought a similar black cat a week for the past seven weeks. Jodi, if you are reading this, please avoid this one as it is disturbing about the fate of the cats. Trivia: There is a character named Harry Potter in this one!
11. The Adventure of the Mad Tea-Party **** Ellery Queen attends a friend’s family children's birthday gathering out on Long Island where the adults are planning a play of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party to entertain the children who will attend. But on the night before the party, the host disappears and then a mysterious set of parcels begin to be delivered but without a ransom note.
Trivia and Link
There is an Ellery Queen specialist site which provides extended information about the editions of The Adventures of Ellery Queen includes some detailed story discussions (Note: Some spoilers included). You can read it at Queen.Spaceports.com.
June 1, 2022
Audiobook narrated by Traber Burns.
I am not a huge Ellery Queen fan but I did enjoy this group of short stories. I do like reading old mysteries, and sometimes I just don’t want to wait so long to discover who done it.
This story collection includes "The African Traveler", "The Mad Tea-Party", "The Seven Black Cats", "The Hanging Acrobat", "The Two-Headed Dog", "The One-Penny Black", "The Bearded Lady", "The Three Lame Men", "The Invisible Lover", "The Teakwood Case", and "The Glass-Domed Clock".
Traber Burns is a good narrator for Ellery Queen stories. He has the right "voice."
I am not a huge Ellery Queen fan but I did enjoy this group of short stories. I do like reading old mysteries, and sometimes I just don’t want to wait so long to discover who done it.
This story collection includes "The African Traveler", "The Mad Tea-Party", "The Seven Black Cats", "The Hanging Acrobat", "The Two-Headed Dog", "The One-Penny Black", "The Bearded Lady", "The Three Lame Men", "The Invisible Lover", "The Teakwood Case", and "The Glass-Domed Clock".
Traber Burns is a good narrator for Ellery Queen stories. He has the right "voice."
May 31, 2014
It's always enlightening to read books from a previous era--especially popular books. They open a window to the thinking of the time. Wikipedia quotes critic Otto Penzler as saying, "Ellery Queen clearly is, after Poe, the most important American in mystery fiction." An interesting thought--I personally didn't find them to be as well written as Agatha Christie's stories, but then, she was British. These short stories read sort of like a comic book, and sometimes I almost expected a "biff" or "pow" to show up like in the old Batman TV shows. These good puzzle stories are set in New York, laden with a a 1930's perspective and a multitude of adjectives used in creative ways. Who ever heard of a "brisk" living room? They provide a light but fun read for the odds and ends of time in a busy life.
June 3, 2016
I know I read this book back nearly 40 years sgo. I did not recall the solution to any of the stories in this book. These are early stories of Ellery and his father, Inspector Queen. Inspector Queen and his snuff box appear in only some stories. In other stories Ellery is outside of NYC.
Some people will be put off by the current for the writing period jargon. Black Americans are referred to as Negro and Negress. I can't fault the authors, the cousins comprising Queen the author, for using the language usage of the years the stories were really written.
The mysteries themselves mostly fooled me, one did not. If you are looking for the Ellery Queen from the TV series only the second story in this collection is close in spirit to that version of Ellery.
Some people will be put off by the current for the writing period jargon. Black Americans are referred to as Negro and Negress. I can't fault the authors, the cousins comprising Queen the author, for using the language usage of the years the stories were really written.
The mysteries themselves mostly fooled me, one did not. If you are looking for the Ellery Queen from the TV series only the second story in this collection is close in spirit to that version of Ellery.
April 9, 2019
De aquella antología de los mejores cuentos policiales que compilaron al alimón Borges y Bioy Casares uno de los nombres que más se me quedó fue el de Ellery Queen (aunque también los de Eden Phillpotts, John Dickson Carr y Harry Kemelman). Ahora me pregunto si no sería precisamente por la sonoridad del nombre más que por la calidad del cuento incluido en aquella coleccion, del que, todo sea dicho, no recuerdo nada. He leído por aquí que estas Aventuras son de lo primero que Frederic Dannay y Manfred Bennington Lee escribieron bajo seudómino compartido, y que con el tiempo mejoraron bastante. No me parece excesivamente difícil: es una lectura para pasar el rato, fiel a las convenciones del género y que, mediante las pistas diseminadas a lo largo de la narración, te permiten hacerte ilusiones sobre tu propia perspicacia a condición de que olvides lo previsibles que son las soluciones a los misterios. Aparte, frente a la tradición de detectives carismáticos, Ellery Queen me parece un poco soso, y el tono es machista y racista a más no poder (ya sé que la época se las traía en este sentido, pero hay obras policiacas de esos tiempos que no huelen tanto a viejo verde). Los personajes femeninos vienen en apenas dos formatos, bellezones curvilíneos e impresionables y cargantes arpías. No sé qué falta hacía referirse a ellas por su nombre, habría sido más honesto para los autores escribir directamente algo como "a la de los pechos grandes le temblaron los ídem y dijo...". Tal vez incluso podrían haber hecho hablar directamente al tetamen. ¿Por qué no hay más obras literarias donde las tetas sean capaces de articular palabras? Eso sí que me parece un misterio.
July 19, 2024
This contains a number of short mystery stories featuring Ellery Queen. Like most short story collections some are definitely better than others. It was published in 1941 and contains the somewhat stilted dialogue and slightly misogynistic tone often found in books of that time period, but I thought the cleverness of the mysteries definitely outweighed the dated feeling of the writing.
The first story has Ellery leading a few students in the art of deduction, and I thought the rest might follow that pattern, but unfortunately they didn't, as it was an interesting idea. There were some really creative puzzles here - most of them didn't have obvious answers, so that was nice. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys early mystery stories and is ok with stock characters populating them.
The first story has Ellery leading a few students in the art of deduction, and I thought the rest might follow that pattern, but unfortunately they didn't, as it was an interesting idea. There were some really creative puzzles here - most of them didn't have obvious answers, so that was nice. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys early mystery stories and is ok with stock characters populating them.
October 7, 2018
Ellery Queen's "The Greek Coffin Mystery" cured me of reading the 'novels.' I was over 4 hours into listening to it when I started looking toward the end, and checked the time, and found that I wasn't even a third of the way through. I dumped it immediately. The writing needs so much editing, that 16 hours of it couldn't be endured.
I have read Otto Penzler's opinion of Ellery Queen's books. I beg to disagree. I happen to be a huge fam of mysteries of this period, and the only author I've found that was worse than Ellery Queen is S.S. Van Dine. Snotty, racist, unrealistic and misogynistic, in addition to the bad writing.
I tried this collection of short stories, (more novelettes) as the last chance, since I've already read "The Chinese Orange Mystery" and "The French Powder Mystery" and found them too long, also.
I'm throwing in the towel. The stories had good plots, but their execution was painful. Too many adverbs and adjectives, just to start. The 'exposé' at the end of the last story was so long and unnecessary, I deleted all the future books from my TBR list. Bah, humbug.
I have read Otto Penzler's opinion of Ellery Queen's books. I beg to disagree. I happen to be a huge fam of mysteries of this period, and the only author I've found that was worse than Ellery Queen is S.S. Van Dine. Snotty, racist, unrealistic and misogynistic, in addition to the bad writing.
I tried this collection of short stories, (more novelettes) as the last chance, since I've already read "The Chinese Orange Mystery" and "The French Powder Mystery" and found them too long, also.
I'm throwing in the towel. The stories had good plots, but their execution was painful. Too many adverbs and adjectives, just to start. The 'exposé' at the end of the last story was so long and unnecessary, I deleted all the future books from my TBR list. Bah, humbug.
May 28, 2024
I’m first and foremost a Holmes fan. I even enjoy Solar Pons, his unofficial heir apparent.
I’ve not before read any Ellery Queen, only knowing about him from the 70’s TV series.
Keep in mind that the stories in this book were written 100 years ago, so referring to women a wenches, writing about their trim legs and voluminous bosom, let alone how oriental and people of color were referred to and addressed was considered fine, by a more shallow minded society of its time.
Putting aside all of this, the stories were fine, but not compelling. I found myself putting the book down a lot and watching YouTube, as well as frequently counting how many pages were left in the stories. (Never a good sign)
On to Ellery Queen himself. I assume that he was at the time, an American version of Holmes. Yet that did not come across. He was an ordinary detective, though unofficial, and solved cases that any regular detective could have at the time.
He also lacks charm. He’s aware of his ‘intelligence’ and reminds others frequently, while carrying a superior tone. He’s misogynistic, demeaning and prone to fits of temper. I guess in today’s vernacular, he’d be identified as an antihero.
I didn’t find myself rooting for him, actually, I just kept telling myself if I finish the book, then I could star Stuart Turton’s new novel.
Just this reviewers opinion.
I’ve not before read any Ellery Queen, only knowing about him from the 70’s TV series.
Keep in mind that the stories in this book were written 100 years ago, so referring to women a wenches, writing about their trim legs and voluminous bosom, let alone how oriental and people of color were referred to and addressed was considered fine, by a more shallow minded society of its time.
Putting aside all of this, the stories were fine, but not compelling. I found myself putting the book down a lot and watching YouTube, as well as frequently counting how many pages were left in the stories. (Never a good sign)
On to Ellery Queen himself. I assume that he was at the time, an American version of Holmes. Yet that did not come across. He was an ordinary detective, though unofficial, and solved cases that any regular detective could have at the time.
He also lacks charm. He’s aware of his ‘intelligence’ and reminds others frequently, while carrying a superior tone. He’s misogynistic, demeaning and prone to fits of temper. I guess in today’s vernacular, he’d be identified as an antihero.
I didn’t find myself rooting for him, actually, I just kept telling myself if I finish the book, then I could star Stuart Turton’s new novel.
Just this reviewers opinion.
December 28, 2021
Never having heard of Queen before, but seeing his name used for a character inThe Decagon House Murders and being on a comfy crime-spree, I thought I'd check Ellery Queen's stuff out.
Reasonably interesting short stories of an investigator who shares the same name as his pseudonymous author from the 1930s, but these stories really haven't aged well, making you wince a few times (racism/sexism). I guess they tried to write riddle-crime-fiction with a hard-boiled slant?
Reasonably interesting short stories of an investigator who shares the same name as his pseudonymous author from the 1930s, but these stories really haven't aged well, making you wince a few times (racism/sexism). I guess they tried to write riddle-crime-fiction with a hard-boiled slant?
January 17, 2026
I only read the two most highly regarded stories in this collection, and assume that the rest are not quite to this level. Hence…
Anyway:
“The Glass-Domed Clock" (1933) [6-]. This story contains an excellent, clear, and relatively simple example of pure deduction. It is in every way fairly clued, and one can actually follow it!
“The Adventure of the Mad Tea-Party” (1934) [5+]. This is often thought to be EQ’s best story. But it presupposes a knowledge and interest in Through the Looking Glass, and so is somewhat less accessible to the average reader. I preferred, then, the 1933 story.
Anyway:
“The Glass-Domed Clock" (1933) [6-]. This story contains an excellent, clear, and relatively simple example of pure deduction. It is in every way fairly clued, and one can actually follow it!
“The Adventure of the Mad Tea-Party” (1934) [5+]. This is often thought to be EQ’s best story. But it presupposes a knowledge and interest in Through the Looking Glass, and so is somewhat less accessible to the average reader. I preferred, then, the 1933 story.
August 1, 2014
Just couldn't deal with this one and in general I'm not a hothouse flower who wilts at sexist and racist references that wouldn't have turned a hair in their day. I remember racing through Ellery Queen books at my local library, and they formed an early part of my love affair with crime fiction but no, no, our love affair is apparently over. The writing just isn't good enough to sustain me through the wincing. This does happen in Dorothy L Sayers from time to time (racism, not so much the sexism) and I can let it go but there's just something touching a nerve here. It's like a tabloid newspaper playing to the crowd.
September 10, 2025
This is a solid collection of early Ellery Queen puzzles, with most of them pleasantly tricky but not very memorable. I’ve read it a couple times before and still feel that “The Mad Tea Party” is the best and most atmospheric. Otherwise, the Wrightsville-ish “The Invisible Lover” and the creepy “The Two-Headed Dog” are my favorites. And “The Glass-Domed Clock” is the most annoying.
October 2, 2018
Unexpected
Although wholly aware of Ellery Queen mysteries, I had never read one. I was a bit disappointed. They don’t hold up the way Doyle and Christie do. So steeped in the time of the writing, many of the then present day vernacular, customs, prejudices, accepted mores and morals, are seriously unacceptable to today’s audience. While the plots and solutions may be interesting and even clever, they are not strong enough to tip the balance; Ellery Queen may be a better history/cultural lesson than a relaxing, enjoyable read.
Although wholly aware of Ellery Queen mysteries, I had never read one. I was a bit disappointed. They don’t hold up the way Doyle and Christie do. So steeped in the time of the writing, many of the then present day vernacular, customs, prejudices, accepted mores and morals, are seriously unacceptable to today’s audience. While the plots and solutions may be interesting and even clever, they are not strong enough to tip the balance; Ellery Queen may be a better history/cultural lesson than a relaxing, enjoyable read.
February 24, 2021
This is a collection of 11 short stories:
The African Traveler, in which Ellery Queen has three of his students examine a corpse of a man just back from Africa at a crime scene, to try to solve the crime. Of course, all three get it wrong.
The Hanging Acrobat, in which an Acrobat's wife is found hanging backstage at the theatre. The puzzle is: why did the murderer pass up four possible weapons close at hand and commit the crime the most difficult possible way?
The One-Penny Black, in which one of two priceless postage stamps is stolen from a dealer. Who did it? And where did it go?
The Bearded Lady, in which a painter is murdered - and his dying clue is to paint a beard on a woman in a painting. What was he trying to tell us?
The Three Lame Men, in which a kidnapping goes bad and a woman dies unintentionally. Footprints indicates three men were involved - and all limping.
The Invisible Lover, in which competition for the girl results in one man dead and the other framed for murder. Ellery indulges in some night-time grave digging to examine the body.
The Teakwood Case, in which a man is murdered in his apartment, and the only clue is the one that is not there - his teakwood cigarette case, which is missing.
The Two-Headed Dog,in which Ellery stops at the Two-Headed Dog pub, and find a salesman murdered in his cabin; the same cabin a jewel thief used months earlier.
The Glass-Domed Clock, in which a curio shop owner is murdered, but leaves a mysterious dying message pointing to his killer.
The Seven Black Cats, in which a bedridden woman who hates cats, adopts one every week; all black with green eyes.
The Mad Tea Party, in which Ellery is invited to a friend's house for their son's birthday party, featuring a play of Alice in Wonderland. All is fine until the Mad Hatter, played by the host, disappears.
Review:
This collection of short stories was not too satisfying. The mysteries were so-so, generally needing a long stretch of imagination and complicated explanations as in all the early Queens. However, the stories were overshadowed by a lot of the baggage of the 1930's writing styles :
Female gender stereotypes abound, especially in The African Traveler. The young woman student is patronized by Queen. It also irks me that women tend to be treated differently - why is it that a woman enters a scene, the writer provides a head-to-foot description of her clothing and accessories, but when a man enters a scene, nothing?
Pejorative racial terms are used for Black and mixed-race persons in The Three Lame Men and The Teakwood Case. Granted, the n-word does not appear, but several others of their ilk do. Not only that, the appearance of a Black woman is only as a menial chambermaid in each.
Intentional harm to pets appears in The Two Headed Dog and The Seven Black Cats. Distasteful in the extreme. In a murder mystery, the murder victim usually deserves it, but innocent animals never do.
The best stories - by process of elimination - are The Hanging Acrobat, The One-Penny Black, and The Mad Tea Party. After subtracting the stories noted above, and two in which the dying victim spends incredible energy constructing confounding dying messages (Bearded Lady and Glass-Domed Clock), they are pretty much the only ones remaining.
There is a sequel about ten years later ... The New Adventures of Ellery Queen. Guess I will try that one next.
The African Traveler, in which Ellery Queen has three of his students examine a corpse of a man just back from Africa at a crime scene, to try to solve the crime. Of course, all three get it wrong.
The Hanging Acrobat, in which an Acrobat's wife is found hanging backstage at the theatre. The puzzle is: why did the murderer pass up four possible weapons close at hand and commit the crime the most difficult possible way?
The One-Penny Black, in which one of two priceless postage stamps is stolen from a dealer. Who did it? And where did it go?
The Bearded Lady, in which a painter is murdered - and his dying clue is to paint a beard on a woman in a painting. What was he trying to tell us?
The Three Lame Men, in which a kidnapping goes bad and a woman dies unintentionally. Footprints indicates three men were involved - and all limping.
The Invisible Lover, in which competition for the girl results in one man dead and the other framed for murder. Ellery indulges in some night-time grave digging to examine the body.
The Teakwood Case, in which a man is murdered in his apartment, and the only clue is the one that is not there - his teakwood cigarette case, which is missing.
The Two-Headed Dog,in which Ellery stops at the Two-Headed Dog pub, and find a salesman murdered in his cabin; the same cabin a jewel thief used months earlier.
The Glass-Domed Clock, in which a curio shop owner is murdered, but leaves a mysterious dying message pointing to his killer.
The Seven Black Cats, in which a bedridden woman who hates cats, adopts one every week; all black with green eyes.
The Mad Tea Party, in which Ellery is invited to a friend's house for their son's birthday party, featuring a play of Alice in Wonderland. All is fine until the Mad Hatter, played by the host, disappears.
Review:
This collection of short stories was not too satisfying. The mysteries were so-so, generally needing a long stretch of imagination and complicated explanations as in all the early Queens. However, the stories were overshadowed by a lot of the baggage of the 1930's writing styles :
Female gender stereotypes abound, especially in The African Traveler. The young woman student is patronized by Queen. It also irks me that women tend to be treated differently - why is it that a woman enters a scene, the writer provides a head-to-foot description of her clothing and accessories, but when a man enters a scene, nothing?
Pejorative racial terms are used for Black and mixed-race persons in The Three Lame Men and The Teakwood Case. Granted, the n-word does not appear, but several others of their ilk do. Not only that, the appearance of a Black woman is only as a menial chambermaid in each.
Intentional harm to pets appears in The Two Headed Dog and The Seven Black Cats. Distasteful in the extreme. In a murder mystery, the murder victim usually deserves it, but innocent animals never do.
The best stories - by process of elimination - are The Hanging Acrobat, The One-Penny Black, and The Mad Tea Party. After subtracting the stories noted above, and two in which the dying victim spends incredible energy constructing confounding dying messages (Bearded Lady and Glass-Domed Clock), they are pretty much the only ones remaining.
There is a sequel about ten years later ... The New Adventures of Ellery Queen. Guess I will try that one next.
February 6, 2018
The son of the local NY Police Inspector, "author" Ellery Queen [Ellery Queen works were really written by Brooklyn cousins Frederic Dannay and Emanuel Benjamin Lepofsky], enjoys unparalleled access to open murder cases, and a certain amount of fame as a result of his ability to solve the most unsolvable cases.
This set of EQ short stores is ideal - you never get overwhelmed (or Ellery-Whelmed), and it's a great book for for traveling - you can read a few, take a quick nap or switch off, and then go back. With eleven stories, you get "The African Traveler," in which Ellery's new detectives-in-training must determine who killed the traveler in the hotel; "The Hanging Acrobat" in which the lovely wife of an acrobat is found hanging by the neck in the theatre, and "The One-Penny Black" which any detective-loving philatelist can cite. Also there's "The Bearded Lady" in which a painting oddly acquires a beard before the murder victim expires; "The Three Lame Men" in which a kidnapping seems to be perpetrated by three men with the same affliction, and "The Invisible Lover," a tale of unfortunate love.
Then we have "The Teakwood Case," in every action that occurs appears to have no explanation or motive; "The Glass-Domed Clock" which the curio-shop owner solves his own murder, and "The Mad Tea Party," which offers a murder at a house party with the play. We also have the morbid "Seven Black Cats," and the best, I think, of the lot, "The Two-Headed Dog" with a murder occurring 20 years after the arrest of an escaped convict at an old dilapidated inn.
I come from a long line of mystery readers, so I have a lot of mysteries on my shelf. I'm lucky, because I can choose the detective or thriller based on my mood - Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Ellery Queen, Stephanie Plum, Miss Fisher, and many more. I enjoy Ellery Queen as a character - fastidious, erudite, and clever. Most of the EQ books are from the 1930's and 1940's, so the books tend to use some of the attitudes, vocabulary, and the setting of their times, but that's hardly a surprise, and at times, it's a nice time capsule. What is a surprise, every time, is the ending. Unlike Agatha Christie, I've never managed to spot the perpetrator in an Ellery Queen. Fun, and a challenge.
This set of EQ short stores is ideal - you never get overwhelmed (or Ellery-Whelmed), and it's a great book for for traveling - you can read a few, take a quick nap or switch off, and then go back. With eleven stories, you get "The African Traveler," in which Ellery's new detectives-in-training must determine who killed the traveler in the hotel; "The Hanging Acrobat" in which the lovely wife of an acrobat is found hanging by the neck in the theatre, and "The One-Penny Black" which any detective-loving philatelist can cite. Also there's "The Bearded Lady" in which a painting oddly acquires a beard before the murder victim expires; "The Three Lame Men" in which a kidnapping seems to be perpetrated by three men with the same affliction, and "The Invisible Lover," a tale of unfortunate love.
Then we have "The Teakwood Case," in every action that occurs appears to have no explanation or motive; "The Glass-Domed Clock" which the curio-shop owner solves his own murder, and "The Mad Tea Party," which offers a murder at a house party with the play. We also have the morbid "Seven Black Cats," and the best, I think, of the lot, "The Two-Headed Dog" with a murder occurring 20 years after the arrest of an escaped convict at an old dilapidated inn.
I come from a long line of mystery readers, so I have a lot of mysteries on my shelf. I'm lucky, because I can choose the detective or thriller based on my mood - Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Ellery Queen, Stephanie Plum, Miss Fisher, and many more. I enjoy Ellery Queen as a character - fastidious, erudite, and clever. Most of the EQ books are from the 1930's and 1940's, so the books tend to use some of the attitudes, vocabulary, and the setting of their times, but that's hardly a surprise, and at times, it's a nice time capsule. What is a surprise, every time, is the ending. Unlike Agatha Christie, I've never managed to spot the perpetrator in an Ellery Queen. Fun, and a challenge.
March 30, 2022
Eleven classic puzzle mysteries from the Thirties featuring Ellery Queen, the fictional amateur detective, written by the pseudonymous Ellery Queen, who was actually a duo consisting of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, two cousins from Brooklyn, NY. The Ellery Queen stories and novels were enormously popular from 1929 until 1971. During the Thirties and Forties, the character was at the height of popularity, and the stories were adapted to radio and movies.
The puzzles are intricate but fair, with plenty of misdirection. Anyone who's a fan of classic mysteries will delight in these stories. If you're a puzzle addict, you may actually solve a few of them (I didn't). Two of the stories feature a "dying message" left by the victim, a contrived mystery trope. A few of the stories have macabre twists, and one pays homage to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. One of the stories features a victim with the unusual name of Euphemia Tarkle, but the killer's name is even more unusual (hint: it's the name of the most famous character from children's fantasy). The stories are well-plotted and fast-paced. I didn't find any of them dull.
The character of Ellery Queen is the biggest unsolved mystery in this book. From the flimsy amount of backstory, we must conclude that Ellery Queen is a dullard. He also comes off as a pretentious, Harvard-educated prig. Why does he live with his widower father? Why doesn't he have a job? As I read the stories, I fondly remembered the joy I discovered when I read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as a child. Ellery Queen would benefit from his own Dr. Watson. Heck, he'd also benefit from having a job, a girlfriend (or boyfriend), an opium addiction, or just a simple hobby.
My first exposure to the Ellery Queen character came from the wonderful NBC TV series in the mid-Seventies featuring Jim Hutton (Tim's dad) as Ellery Queen and David Wayne as his father, Inspector Richard Queen. The show was created by Emmy-winning writers Richard Levinson and William Link, the team behind Columbo.
The puzzles are intricate but fair, with plenty of misdirection. Anyone who's a fan of classic mysteries will delight in these stories. If you're a puzzle addict, you may actually solve a few of them (I didn't). Two of the stories feature a "dying message" left by the victim, a contrived mystery trope. A few of the stories have macabre twists, and one pays homage to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. One of the stories features a victim with the unusual name of Euphemia Tarkle, but the killer's name is even more unusual (hint: it's the name of the most famous character from children's fantasy). The stories are well-plotted and fast-paced. I didn't find any of them dull.
The character of Ellery Queen is the biggest unsolved mystery in this book. From the flimsy amount of backstory, we must conclude that Ellery Queen is a dullard. He also comes off as a pretentious, Harvard-educated prig. Why does he live with his widower father? Why doesn't he have a job? As I read the stories, I fondly remembered the joy I discovered when I read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes as a child. Ellery Queen would benefit from his own Dr. Watson. Heck, he'd also benefit from having a job, a girlfriend (or boyfriend), an opium addiction, or just a simple hobby.
My first exposure to the Ellery Queen character came from the wonderful NBC TV series in the mid-Seventies featuring Jim Hutton (Tim's dad) as Ellery Queen and David Wayne as his father, Inspector Richard Queen. The show was created by Emmy-winning writers Richard Levinson and William Link, the team behind Columbo.
December 5, 2014
"After Poe, I think it's true that Ellery Queen was the most significant and important writer of mystery fiction in America." - Otto Penzler, Mysterious Press.
Brilliant collection of very clever, ingenious and utterly engrossing "fair play"* puzzle murder mysteries, penned in the 1930s by "Ellery Queen"... or rather by cousins, Frederic Dannay (1905-1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905-1971). Ellery Queen was not only the cousins' nom de plume, but their main detective character in the books.
"What on earth could possibly be going on here?!" I asked every time, as the often bizarre and seemingly 'impossible' mysteries played out, and the clues were revealed... but all those quirky pieces of the puzzle came together nicely every time in the final denouement. Sometimes I kicked myself for missing it; other times I held up my hands and conceded "Genius - I'd never had thought that!". Yes, of course in places the writing style of the 1930s seems "dated" and there are so called "politically incorrect" (who cares?) moments, but that adds to the overall charm of these stories.
Every single one of these short "fair play"* mysteries is an absolute gem - a joy to read, excellent, satisfying - and very addictive! When I finished one I just had to start on the next right away! Great fun!
After this short story collection, I'm hungry to read more of the Ellery Queen novels; and thanks to Kindle Unlimited, I already have a half dozen downloaded on my device and ready and raring to go! Next...!
*Fair Play Mystery: a mystery in which all of the clues are presented in the stories, so that the reader has every single clue and every single piece of information necessary to solve the murder.
Brilliant collection of very clever, ingenious and utterly engrossing "fair play"* puzzle murder mysteries, penned in the 1930s by "Ellery Queen"... or rather by cousins, Frederic Dannay (1905-1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905-1971). Ellery Queen was not only the cousins' nom de plume, but their main detective character in the books.
"What on earth could possibly be going on here?!" I asked every time, as the often bizarre and seemingly 'impossible' mysteries played out, and the clues were revealed... but all those quirky pieces of the puzzle came together nicely every time in the final denouement. Sometimes I kicked myself for missing it; other times I held up my hands and conceded "Genius - I'd never had thought that!". Yes, of course in places the writing style of the 1930s seems "dated" and there are so called "politically incorrect" (who cares?) moments, but that adds to the overall charm of these stories.
Every single one of these short "fair play"* mysteries is an absolute gem - a joy to read, excellent, satisfying - and very addictive! When I finished one I just had to start on the next right away! Great fun!
After this short story collection, I'm hungry to read more of the Ellery Queen novels; and thanks to Kindle Unlimited, I already have a half dozen downloaded on my device and ready and raring to go! Next...!
*Fair Play Mystery: a mystery in which all of the clues are presented in the stories, so that the reader has every single clue and every single piece of information necessary to solve the murder.
September 24, 2023
Objectively, a mix. The plot engineering is expert, with clues fairly doled out and well-disguised and the remorseless deductive logic behind the solution of the mystery worked through in a way that makes sense--there are leaps (with a few clues dependent on assumptions about 1930s gender roles, say) but always an "if this, then only that" logic that, in retrospect, makes perfect sense. So it lives up to the fair-play reputation. Also, though Golden Age mysteries are often dinged for being figuratively, and I guess occasionally literally, bloodless mental exercises, there's a commendable focus here on the characters' horror of death. Alongside this, which I know is contradictory, there's also a great deal of meta- ingenuity in the multiple, inventive narrative structures of the stories and the kinds of clues on offer--a frayed rug, a bearded lady in a painting, a hotel's name, someone buying six identical cats, each a day apart--that mixes things up quite pleasingly.
The extra-textual parts are the ones that I want to ponder. Martin Edwards's massive The Life of Crime quotes one of the authors, cousins Frederick Dannay and Manfred Lee, who wrote together, by his account and Otto Penzler's not especially harmoniously, as "Ellery Queen," claiming that Queen the character was essentially Jewish. There's a double masquerade, with the two authors, birth names Nathan and Lepofsky, masquerading as WASPs masquerading as Queen. And I just don't see it, having read this collection and at least four Queen novels. Feels like the opposite to me, a fevered stab at assimilation. (Not sure I've encountered anyone in this period writing mysteries who was Jewish. All I know is Israel Zangwill's The Big Bow Mystery, which came out in 1892. I wonder if this was because a lot of the writers who might have otherwise have written pulp/pop mysteries considered the form too ideologically conservative and wrote proletarian fiction instead.) The most common verbs for Queen's speech here, aside from "said," are "drawled" and "murmured," both of which cropped up at least once a story each and several times more frequently--the seams usually show up somewhere in old popular fiction--which feels like an aspiration to the upper-crust ease of, say, Willard Huntington Wright's insufferable Philo Vance. (Read all of those novels a while back and am leery of going back.)
And the cast of characters here is, uh, narrow--there's none of the anti-Semitic stereotyping you often run into in period novels, because there are no Jewish characters; though there are, unfortunately, a couple of extremely secondary Black characters, both of whom speak in dialect, and one German, who I'm fairly sure isn't Jewish but could be, and everyone else is named something like Gardner or Shaw or Sherman. Plus, Queen is frequently given to dialogue in an exceedingly Vance-like vein, which Otto Penzler says mostly came in the early stories (would have helped to know which was written when). Such as: "'Bless your orderly old Teutonic soul,' said Ellery. 'Velie, cast those Cyclopean peepers of yours this way.'" Or, after Ellery tastes a cookie and likes it, "Yours? Delicious. A veritable Lucrece, b'gad. Or is it Penelope I'm thinking of?" And later, "Don't be alarmed, Marie [not her name]...this isn't an abduction. You have achieved Valhalla." Also, wow, you could do one of those Twitter threads about how often the female characters' busts are mentioned. That, too, was pretty much every time. So...ace period detective fiction that's very much of its period.
The extra-textual parts are the ones that I want to ponder. Martin Edwards's massive The Life of Crime quotes one of the authors, cousins Frederick Dannay and Manfred Lee, who wrote together, by his account and Otto Penzler's not especially harmoniously, as "Ellery Queen," claiming that Queen the character was essentially Jewish. There's a double masquerade, with the two authors, birth names Nathan and Lepofsky, masquerading as WASPs masquerading as Queen. And I just don't see it, having read this collection and at least four Queen novels. Feels like the opposite to me, a fevered stab at assimilation. (Not sure I've encountered anyone in this period writing mysteries who was Jewish. All I know is Israel Zangwill's The Big Bow Mystery, which came out in 1892. I wonder if this was because a lot of the writers who might have otherwise have written pulp/pop mysteries considered the form too ideologically conservative and wrote proletarian fiction instead.) The most common verbs for Queen's speech here, aside from "said," are "drawled" and "murmured," both of which cropped up at least once a story each and several times more frequently--the seams usually show up somewhere in old popular fiction--which feels like an aspiration to the upper-crust ease of, say, Willard Huntington Wright's insufferable Philo Vance. (Read all of those novels a while back and am leery of going back.)
And the cast of characters here is, uh, narrow--there's none of the anti-Semitic stereotyping you often run into in period novels, because there are no Jewish characters; though there are, unfortunately, a couple of extremely secondary Black characters, both of whom speak in dialect, and one German, who I'm fairly sure isn't Jewish but could be, and everyone else is named something like Gardner or Shaw or Sherman. Plus, Queen is frequently given to dialogue in an exceedingly Vance-like vein, which Otto Penzler says mostly came in the early stories (would have helped to know which was written when). Such as: "'Bless your orderly old Teutonic soul,' said Ellery. 'Velie, cast those Cyclopean peepers of yours this way.'" Or, after Ellery tastes a cookie and likes it, "Yours? Delicious. A veritable Lucrece, b'gad. Or is it Penelope I'm thinking of?" And later, "Don't be alarmed, Marie [not her name]...this isn't an abduction. You have achieved Valhalla." Also, wow, you could do one of those Twitter threads about how often the female characters' busts are mentioned. That, too, was pretty much every time. So...ace period detective fiction that's very much of its period.
October 4, 2023
This 1934 collection of short stories starring the American detective Ellery Queen is the most recent re-release in the American Mystery Classics series.
Queen is the son of the New York Police Department Inspector Richard Queen. Ellery gets called in to help with the hard cases. He is an aloof almost dandyish guy who usually seems to either be speaking down to people or dropping mystery hints.
The two cousins who wrote under the name "Ellery Queen" wrote over 30 EQ novels. The novels sometimes seem very long with a fair amount of padding before the murder is solved.
I enjoyed these stories because they boiled down to the essentials. A strange murder happens. Queen gets involved. The police uncover odd or inconsistent facts. Queen pokes around a bit and then explains who the murderer is by tying together all of the facts that had been laid out. It feels like we could have figured it out ourselves, but we never do.
Although the pattern is the same, there is a nice variety in the stories. One is set in an old Cape Cod Inn. One in a New York tenement. One involves a high society floozy. One is in an antique shop. There is a nice cross section of victims and murder techniques.
The stories, of course, have all of the unreality of classic murder stories. The tragedy of violent death to the survivors is lost under the intellectual challenge of solving the problem. Murderers consistently use widely overelaborate techniques rather than the old standby of stab or shoot and leave. Murderers are all smart, but not as smart as they think they are, when, in reality, most murderers are stupid.
This is a fun collection of solid fair play mysteries with some good surprise endings.
Spoiler alert that is worth it.
As Queen is investigating a murder in a tenement building, he knocks on the building superintendent's door. A rough looking guy answers. "O, so you're the dick" growled the thickset man,...." I'm the super here--Harry Potter". (Didn't see that coming.)
Even better, the story ends with Queen explaining that only one man could have committed the murder, "In a word,", said Ellery, the superintendent of the building, Harry Potter." (A long fall from Hogwarts)
Queen is the son of the New York Police Department Inspector Richard Queen. Ellery gets called in to help with the hard cases. He is an aloof almost dandyish guy who usually seems to either be speaking down to people or dropping mystery hints.
The two cousins who wrote under the name "Ellery Queen" wrote over 30 EQ novels. The novels sometimes seem very long with a fair amount of padding before the murder is solved.
I enjoyed these stories because they boiled down to the essentials. A strange murder happens. Queen gets involved. The police uncover odd or inconsistent facts. Queen pokes around a bit and then explains who the murderer is by tying together all of the facts that had been laid out. It feels like we could have figured it out ourselves, but we never do.
Although the pattern is the same, there is a nice variety in the stories. One is set in an old Cape Cod Inn. One in a New York tenement. One involves a high society floozy. One is in an antique shop. There is a nice cross section of victims and murder techniques.
The stories, of course, have all of the unreality of classic murder stories. The tragedy of violent death to the survivors is lost under the intellectual challenge of solving the problem. Murderers consistently use widely overelaborate techniques rather than the old standby of stab or shoot and leave. Murderers are all smart, but not as smart as they think they are, when, in reality, most murderers are stupid.
This is a fun collection of solid fair play mysteries with some good surprise endings.
Spoiler alert that is worth it.
As Queen is investigating a murder in a tenement building, he knocks on the building superintendent's door. A rough looking guy answers. "O, so you're the dick" growled the thickset man,...." I'm the super here--Harry Potter". (Didn't see that coming.)
Even better, the story ends with Queen explaining that only one man could have committed the murder, "In a word,", said Ellery, the superintendent of the building, Harry Potter." (A long fall from Hogwarts)
January 15, 2021
I have been hearing the name Ellery Queen for years but was never really sure whether he or she was a fictional character or an author. Turns out he's both the character and a pen name for the two authors who created him, and while I got a little sidetracked by a few other things I was reading I really enjoyed this short story collection. I do think I might like this character better in a full-length novel, so that's definitely going on my TBR list.
Fun facts:
--Philately. I am continually astonished at how many mysteries revolve around this subject (which as I learned in this book is also known as stampdom). Collect the right stamps and you will apparently end up super rich (though possibly also super dead).
--Something in the writing style reminds me a bit of Winston Graham and the Poldark series
--Apparently the rule for what constitutes a Leap Year is...not just every four years?
--It seems your birthstone is different depending on what system you use. Interesting.
Facts that were not fun:
--Waaay too much unnecessary violence inflicted on pet animals (described in detail) in a few of these stories
--A very unfortunate 1930s description of a black woman working in a hotel. Though Ellery Queen is slightly more respectful to her than the other characters. Slightly.
--What is the deal with men sucking on the heads of their canes? This is the third book I've read recently that's mentioned it and...ew.
--This electronic copy from the library was not well-edited. #booksmadeoutofpaper📚
Back in the Times Before the Beforetimes
--Married couples sleep in the same room in twin beds
--Characters specify that they are taking a self-service elevator. Because elevator operators were a thing.
Oh--and just for the record, Ellery Queen is the best name EVER.
Fun facts:
--Philately. I am continually astonished at how many mysteries revolve around this subject (which as I learned in this book is also known as stampdom). Collect the right stamps and you will apparently end up super rich (though possibly also super dead).
--Something in the writing style reminds me a bit of Winston Graham and the Poldark series
--Apparently the rule for what constitutes a Leap Year is...not just every four years?
--It seems your birthstone is different depending on what system you use. Interesting.
Facts that were not fun:
--Waaay too much unnecessary violence inflicted on pet animals (described in detail) in a few of these stories
--A very unfortunate 1930s description of a black woman working in a hotel. Though Ellery Queen is slightly more respectful to her than the other characters. Slightly.
--What is the deal with men sucking on the heads of their canes? This is the third book I've read recently that's mentioned it and...ew.
--This electronic copy from the library was not well-edited. #booksmadeoutofpaper📚
Back in the Times Before the Beforetimes
--Married couples sleep in the same room in twin beds
--Characters specify that they are taking a self-service elevator. Because elevator operators were a thing.
Oh--and just for the record, Ellery Queen is the best name EVER.
July 16, 2024
The Adventures of Ellery Queen, Ellery Queen [Penzler/W.W. Norton, 1934].
Subtitled “Eleven Problems in Detection”; The Adventures of Ellery Queen, is the first collection of Ellery Queen stories from 1934. Includes:
…”The African Traveler”: Ellery Queen and three students from his Criminology class investigate the murder of a womanizer in a NYC hotel room.
…”The Hanging Acrobat”: When a beautiful acrobat who was conducting numerous extramarital affairs is murdered, suspects are abundant.
…”The One Penny Black”: Ellery Queen investigates the theft of a rare stamp, initialed by Queen Victoria and a subsequent assault and burglary whose victims were believed to be unwittingly possessing the stamp.
…”’The Two Headed Dog’”: While traveling to Newport, Queen stops at an inn at the Cape, where a fugitive jewel thief recently stayed, and where mysterious, possibly supernatural, phenomena are reported.
…” The Invisible Lover”: A romantic rivalry leads to murder in a quiet community in upstate New York, with a young lawyer standing accused.
***
Ellery Queen was the pseudonym of Frederick Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, cousins from Brooklyn, New York who authored the Golden Age detective series, Ellery Queen. Ellery Queen stories have been adapted for radio, movies, and television. “Ellery Queen is the American mystery.” Anthony Boucher
…
Subtitled “Eleven Problems in Detection”; The Adventures of Ellery Queen, is the first collection of Ellery Queen stories from 1934. Includes:
…”The African Traveler”: Ellery Queen and three students from his Criminology class investigate the murder of a womanizer in a NYC hotel room.
…”The Hanging Acrobat”: When a beautiful acrobat who was conducting numerous extramarital affairs is murdered, suspects are abundant.
…”The One Penny Black”: Ellery Queen investigates the theft of a rare stamp, initialed by Queen Victoria and a subsequent assault and burglary whose victims were believed to be unwittingly possessing the stamp.
…”’The Two Headed Dog’”: While traveling to Newport, Queen stops at an inn at the Cape, where a fugitive jewel thief recently stayed, and where mysterious, possibly supernatural, phenomena are reported.
…” The Invisible Lover”: A romantic rivalry leads to murder in a quiet community in upstate New York, with a young lawyer standing accused.
***
Ellery Queen was the pseudonym of Frederick Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, cousins from Brooklyn, New York who authored the Golden Age detective series, Ellery Queen. Ellery Queen stories have been adapted for radio, movies, and television. “Ellery Queen is the American mystery.” Anthony Boucher
…
March 13, 2021
What an odd little book! The stories themselves were well crafted (except the last one) and the mysteries were fun to solve. But I'm not sure I'll be back for more in this series, because this book didn't engage me the way Hercule Poirots or Nero Wolfes do.
Perhaps because it feels dated (many of these short stories were originally published in the late 1930s). Maybe because it's the product of two writers working in collaboration (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee). Perhaps because Ellery himself is an odd character (the relationship between effete egghead son and rough and tough Irish cop dad reminded me of TV's Frasier and his father, Martin).
Also, animal lovers beware! Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee did not take the sensitivity of dog and cat lovers into account when they wrote these.
Perhaps because it feels dated (many of these short stories were originally published in the late 1930s). Maybe because it's the product of two writers working in collaboration (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee). Perhaps because Ellery himself is an odd character (the relationship between effete egghead son and rough and tough Irish cop dad reminded me of TV's Frasier and his father, Martin).
Also, animal lovers beware! Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee did not take the sensitivity of dog and cat lovers into account when they wrote these.
January 17, 2025
This is a very good introduction to the world and character of Ellery Queen. There is an excellent intro as to the authors and their writing styles that I found intriguing. I encourage anyone who wants to know more about this quintessential character to pick up this book.
Each of the short stories can be easily read in an hour or less. Queen is the protagonist in each tale, although his father and Sargent Velie of the NY Police Department are supporting characters. He is portrayed as being almost a savant when it comes to figuring out the crimes, although he thinks the answers are fairly obvious. He is single, and nearly every story makes plain that he is a bit of a "ladies' man."
*Note: The hard thing about reading books from the first half of the 20th century is that there are words and phrases we would never use today. This book is no exception.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND
Each of the short stories can be easily read in an hour or less. Queen is the protagonist in each tale, although his father and Sargent Velie of the NY Police Department are supporting characters. He is portrayed as being almost a savant when it comes to figuring out the crimes, although he thinks the answers are fairly obvious. He is single, and nearly every story makes plain that he is a bit of a "ladies' man."
*Note: The hard thing about reading books from the first half of the 20th century is that there are words and phrases we would never use today. This book is no exception.
HIGHLY RECOMMEND
November 8, 2017
Een reeks korte verhalen waarin Ellery Queen kan laten zien wat voor een goede detective hij is, enkel door de beschikbare feiten te combineren en via deductie tot de juiste oplossing te komen.
Daar het korte verhalen zijn waren de auteurs natuurlijk ook beperkt in de voorstelling van het probleem en de ontrafeling van de oplossing.
Een aantal problemen en oplossingen zijn zeker origineel te noemen.
Ellery Queen (schrijverspseudoniem van 2 neven) beroemde er zich op dat de oplossing altijd kan gevonden worden door wie het boek of verhaal aandachtig leest.
Mij lukt dat zelden...
De verhalen van Ellery Queen, zeker die met detective Ellery Queen in de hoofdrol behoren bij de absolute wereldtop van de whodunits.
Daar het korte verhalen zijn waren de auteurs natuurlijk ook beperkt in de voorstelling van het probleem en de ontrafeling van de oplossing.
Een aantal problemen en oplossingen zijn zeker origineel te noemen.
Ellery Queen (schrijverspseudoniem van 2 neven) beroemde er zich op dat de oplossing altijd kan gevonden worden door wie het boek of verhaal aandachtig leest.
Mij lukt dat zelden...
De verhalen van Ellery Queen, zeker die met detective Ellery Queen in de hoofdrol behoren bij de absolute wereldtop van de whodunits.
November 10, 2020
This is a pretty good collection of stories but one of the stories here, the last one, The Adventure of the Mad Tea Party, contains a pretty big spoiler early on before it even ends.
Not sure what page this is, but it says "location 4032" in my kindle with no page number:
SPOILERS
"They stared with peculiar hunger at each other. Mrs. Owen suddenly smiled and turned her back, struggling with her cumbersome costume."
I know these authors usually drop some hints but these are almost always very subtle. I've never encountered such an obvious spoiler so I'm not sure if this is a publishing typo. I've read a lot of Golden Age mystery novels and this is one of the first I've seen.
Not sure what page this is, but it says "location 4032" in my kindle with no page number:
SPOILERS
"They stared with peculiar hunger at each other. Mrs. Owen suddenly smiled and turned her back, struggling with her cumbersome costume."
I know these authors usually drop some hints but these are almost always very subtle. I've never encountered such an obvious spoiler so I'm not sure if this is a publishing typo. I've read a lot of Golden Age mystery novels and this is one of the first I've seen.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 10, 2018
I remember reading Ellery Queen many years ago, but didn't remember it being as crude (language, stereotypes, etc.) as this book was. I also remember EQ books as more entertaining than these were. I got 3 or 4 EQ books along with this one, and started the next one; Calendar of Crime. I just started it, but already it's good the general mood and atmosphere that I remembered - a set of "10 minute mysteries" type of thing with some humor. It's probably significant that The Adventures of Ellery Queen is from the 1930's whereas Calendar of Crime is from the 1950's. Don't waste your time on this book - go with one of the later books.
February 17, 2019
I've been a fan of mysteries for years and I'd long heard that Ellery Queen stories were among some of the best...however, I'd never read any of them until this collection of short stories. I have to say I was surprisingly unimpressed with any of the offerings in this collection. Although they grew on me for their overall entertainment value, I found the solutions to be utterly unbelievable and, in most cases, downright ridiculous. For example, the Adventure of the Glass-Domed Clock had a solution so complicated and silly as to have me rolling my eyes. In fact, while that one was probably the most far-fetched, almost every solution was face-palm worthy.
January 8, 2026
I've never really loved the classic whodunit style of mystery, with obscure clues barely mentioned in passing, flimsy "psychological" reasoning, and so on. So the mystery elements of these brief tales doesn't really do it for me. On the other hand, the writing in some of these is just great—evocative, creepy, funny, or whatever is required—with some wonderful turns of phrase I'm too lazy to go find examples of. One of my favorites is a very spooky gothic tale ("The Adventure of the Two-Headed Dog") that takes place at a country inn; read it on Halloween! Minus one star for the gruesome description of the corpse of someone's murdered pet; you have been warned.
July 31, 2022
Perhaps I'm being harsh in my rating, given it was written in 1934 and is a product of its time. However when compared even to some of the other Ellergy Queen mysteries, the amount of time Ellery spends panting at good looking women is excessive. He is also far more self-satisfied in his smarts than in the longer adventures. I haven't looked at the publishing dates, but perhaps this is some of the earliest adventures?
As for the mysteries, several are enjoyable to follow, some are just alright.
As for the mysteries, several are enjoyable to follow, some are just alright.
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