Which Way to Die?

Tim Corrigan

by Ellery Queen

Tim Corrigan and Chuck Baer risk their necks to protect a pair of brilliant killers When Chuck Baer and Tim Corrigan fought in Korea, they were known as the Deadly Duo. Now that they’re back in New York, Baer is working as a private eye and Corrigan is the only cop in the NYPD tough enough to wear an eye patch. They’re a long way from the army, but this duo never stopped being deadly.   Some 4 years ago, Corrigan had arrested Gerard Alstrom and Frank Grant, a pair of Columbia University freshmen who thought they were smart enough to commit the perfect murder. When a Miranda violation voids the killers’ conviction, it’s even money as to who will kill them 1 the mob boss father of the girl they slaughtered, or her football star boyfriend. Corrigan is assigned to protect the bloodthirsty geniuses, whose sky-high IQs can’t save them from a bullet to the brain.

199 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1967

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

[Robert Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book under the house name of Ellery Queen but actually by Richard Deming. This is the fifth appearance of Police Captain Tim Corrigan. I found it enjoyable. Sounds odd considering how it starts out. Corrigan is assigned to protect two guys who are murderers and were let off on a technicality. It would have been a fairly intense novel if it had stuck with the morality play but it soon jumped into a murder mystery when one of the two is murdered. Unfortunately the clue that was quickly found made me say "either this is going to become a sci-fi story or the murderer is..." Let me just say that, No, it didn't become sci-fi. But over all I enjoyed the writing and liked the characters enough to finish.

[Jimmy Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the 1960s, when Ellery Queen (or professional names Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, or more accurately Daniel Nathan and Emanuel Benjamin Lepofsky) stopped writing novels, a number of books were ghostwritten, or franchised, under Ellery Queen's name. These books were edited and supervised by Lee or Dannay, but most do not feature Ellery Queen's character. Such a book is "Which Way to Die?" which features Tom Corrigan, a police Captain and disabled veteran of the Korean War, actually authored by Talmage Powell.

We encounter Corrigan as he hears that the two convicted thrill killers he brought to justice years ago are being released on a technicality. He and his army buddy Chuck Baer, now a private eye, are both tapped to ensure the killers' safety upon release - but the details have been left up to the perpetrators' families. There are two very interested parties who would like to get to the killers: the mafia boss who lost his adored daughter, and the football star who lost his fiance, in that original killing - and when one of those released killers is found dead, the other alive and panic-stricken, in a locked room, it's no surprise...but now Corrigan must solve the mystery and bring justice.

I'm not sure if, knowing some of Ellery Queen's novels were franchised, I suspected it from the first, or if I really could tell, but in reading this, I felt the tone was far different from novels featuring Ellery Queen / Barnaby Ross. The book was shorter (my popular library edition was 127 pages), and there was much less characterization - what characterization there was leaned towards the cliche'. If this had been my first Ellery Queen, I might not have picked up another.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Super quick “Who done it”-style murder mystery. Characters are easy to follow, but with a handful of flaws that make the storyline ebb on believability. Most notably was Carrigan suddenly sneaking off to canoodle on the roof with the victim’s sister while the private eye conveniently steps out for a drink. It left their targets wide open and created the perfect (and too convenient) moment for murder. From that moment on, as much as they tried to saddle the murder on the football star, it just didn’t make sense. Also, I sure would have loved to know why these two boys chose the mobster’s daughter to oof for the “Perfect murder.”

[Juan Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the best Tim Corrigan's mysteries.