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Ellery Queen Detective #17
There Was an Old Woman
When a diabolical mystery comes calling, Ellery Queen is on the case. -- Once upon an evil time, there was a wicked old woman with a mammoth shoe company worth many millions of dollars, a henpecked husband, and six miserable children. Then one day death came visiting the vast Potts mansion -- and began claiming its inhabitants one by one. It was then that Ellery Queen was invited to sup on this nightmare brew of diabolical murder and baffling mystery -- in a case that made the most horrific crimes in his entire career seem like fairy tales. As he endeavors to solve the case, he tries to make sense of this family that defies rationality.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1943
36 people are currently reading
290 people want to read
About the author
Ellery Queen
1,786 books486 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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Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
June 21, 2020
My 666 book in Goodreads. It’s good that it features the evil Mrs. Cornelia Potts. She is a tyrannical elderly woman who rules the Potts shoe empire with an iron hand. She is nicknamed by newspapers as the old woman who lives in the shoe as her house is shaped like it. She has six children, three from her first marriage who are bat shit crazy and three from her second marriage who are normal and sane. Guess which ones she favors!
The crazy children are Thurlow Potts whose hobby is frivolous lawsuits to stop people taking the mickey out of the Potts name; Louella a deluded woman who thinks she is a brilliant chemist and inventor; and Horatio, who thinks he 10 years old and lived as a child.
The other children include the twins Robert and Maclyn, who manage the shoe empire and the pretty Sheila. Thurlow's lawyer Charley Paxton is engaged to Sheila. Ellery Queen comes to dinner at the Potts mansion to meet the family.
What follows is duel at dawn between Thurlow and Robert and evening though Ellery puts blanks in the guns, Robert is killed. Then his twin brother s also murdered. Who did it?
I enjoyed this whodunnit and it has a few twists and turns at the end. The wedding ceremony is a nice touch. In the end it is the person with a strong motive.
The crazy children are Thurlow Potts whose hobby is frivolous lawsuits to stop people taking the mickey out of the Potts name; Louella a deluded woman who thinks she is a brilliant chemist and inventor; and Horatio, who thinks he 10 years old and lived as a child.
The other children include the twins Robert and Maclyn, who manage the shoe empire and the pretty Sheila. Thurlow's lawyer Charley Paxton is engaged to Sheila. Ellery Queen comes to dinner at the Potts mansion to meet the family.
What follows is duel at dawn between Thurlow and Robert and evening though Ellery puts blanks in the guns, Robert is killed. Then his twin brother s also murdered. Who did it?
I enjoyed this whodunnit and it has a few twists and turns at the end. The wedding ceremony is a nice touch. In the end it is the person with a strong motive.
June 19, 2019
COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century North American Crime
BOOK 184 (of 250)
Hook=1 star: This one opens with a description of a courtroom building. The first few pages are the kind that cause many people to place the book back on a library shelf: nothing happens.
Pace=2 stars: Slow-going for the first 50 pages or so. Then, Queen kicks things into gear and the rest of the book reads fast.
Plot=3: Murder among a rich, eccentric family. There is a fascinating duel that isn't what it seems and a confession note that may or may not be forged: interesting elements within an interesting, but not exceptional, plot.
People=3: Talk about eccentric! There is Cornelia, the matriarch/ruler/Mad Queen of the family, a son who lives in a playhouse in the backyard, and more. And the father/son detective team is a classic in this genre.
Place=4: A New York mansion facing the Hudson River is beautifully drawn: it's a classic Dame Christie country house you'll enjoy exploring (lawns, terraces, oddities of architecture) as the plot evolves.
Summary: There are enough twists and turns to keep even the most discerning who-done-it readers entertained. But for me, the final deductions/chapters are head-spinning and at one point, I had to re-read a chapter. Many of of Ellery Queen's murder mysteries render Agatha Christie's body of work truly 'cozy', for better or worse: it just depends on what you're in the mood for. A quiet afternoon indoors with a cuppa? It's Christie or maybe M.C. Beaton. A demanding mental exercise which may require notes to keep track of wild, winding plots? Queen or perhaps Rex Stout. Any of these four, however, are giants of the mystery genre. But just one big negative for "There Was An Old Woman": a last moment out-of-nowhere clue leads to an impossible-to-detect reveal, hence my overall rating of 2.6. And if you're particularly incensed with this kind of trick, skip this novel and go for one of Queen's better works, like "Calamity Town", previously reviewed.
BOOK 184 (of 250)
Hook=1 star: This one opens with a description of a courtroom building. The first few pages are the kind that cause many people to place the book back on a library shelf: nothing happens.
Pace=2 stars: Slow-going for the first 50 pages or so. Then, Queen kicks things into gear and the rest of the book reads fast.
Plot=3: Murder among a rich, eccentric family. There is a fascinating duel that isn't what it seems and a confession note that may or may not be forged: interesting elements within an interesting, but not exceptional, plot.
People=3: Talk about eccentric! There is Cornelia, the matriarch/ruler/Mad Queen of the family, a son who lives in a playhouse in the backyard, and more. And the father/son detective team is a classic in this genre.
Place=4: A New York mansion facing the Hudson River is beautifully drawn: it's a classic Dame Christie country house you'll enjoy exploring (lawns, terraces, oddities of architecture) as the plot evolves.
Summary: There are enough twists and turns to keep even the most discerning who-done-it readers entertained. But for me, the final deductions/chapters are head-spinning and at one point, I had to re-read a chapter. Many of of Ellery Queen's murder mysteries render Agatha Christie's body of work truly 'cozy', for better or worse: it just depends on what you're in the mood for. A quiet afternoon indoors with a cuppa? It's Christie or maybe M.C. Beaton. A demanding mental exercise which may require notes to keep track of wild, winding plots? Queen or perhaps Rex Stout. Any of these four, however, are giants of the mystery genre. But just one big negative for "There Was An Old Woman": a last moment out-of-nowhere clue leads to an impossible-to-detect reveal, hence my overall rating of 2.6. And if you're particularly incensed with this kind of trick, skip this novel and go for one of Queen's better works, like "Calamity Town", previously reviewed.
February 16, 2018
You read one Ellery Queen, and suddenly you're in the mood for nothing but more Ellery Queen. Fortunately there are some 24 Ellery Queen books, and a few collections compiled with introductions by Ellery, not to mention short stories by Ellery...because no one writes like cousins Daniel Nathan (pen name Frederic Dannay) and Emanuel Benjamin Lepofsky (pen name Manfred Bennington Lee) (cumulative pen name Ellery Queen). Whew.
In "There Was An Old Woman," we have one of the most improbable murders Ellery must solve yet. The title comes from the Mother Goose nursery rhyme, "There was an old woman who lived in a shoe," and indeed, she has quite a number of children. Most of whom seem...unusual, most of whom are feuding, all of whom are living together due to a fortune the old woman has built...in shoes. We also have the husband (#2), the husband's ne'er-do-well best friend, and a passel of long-suffering servants (emphasis on the "suffering") who must put up not just with the family, and abuse from the old woman who is a piece of work indeed, and incredibly odd murder #1, but the additional odd occurrences that come like clockwork. Meanwhile, the old woman is completely irascible, threatening to call the police down on reporters, on the children she doesn't like, and Inspector Queen. Irony notwithstanding.
Unfortunately Ellery's friend, the family's lawyer, is in love with one of the more normal children, who refuses to marry him because she might have inherited the family insanity (which just proves her sanity, but she doesn't seem to see it). It's up to Ellery to solve the conundrum, try to find some semblance of normalcy, and get a good night's sleep at last. We all know he can, but in the meantime, it's a darn good story - one of the best. Creative situation and unusual resolution.
In "There Was An Old Woman," we have one of the most improbable murders Ellery must solve yet. The title comes from the Mother Goose nursery rhyme, "There was an old woman who lived in a shoe," and indeed, she has quite a number of children. Most of whom seem...unusual, most of whom are feuding, all of whom are living together due to a fortune the old woman has built...in shoes. We also have the husband (#2), the husband's ne'er-do-well best friend, and a passel of long-suffering servants (emphasis on the "suffering") who must put up not just with the family, and abuse from the old woman who is a piece of work indeed, and incredibly odd murder #1, but the additional odd occurrences that come like clockwork. Meanwhile, the old woman is completely irascible, threatening to call the police down on reporters, on the children she doesn't like, and Inspector Queen. Irony notwithstanding.
Unfortunately Ellery's friend, the family's lawyer, is in love with one of the more normal children, who refuses to marry him because she might have inherited the family insanity (which just proves her sanity, but she doesn't seem to see it). It's up to Ellery to solve the conundrum, try to find some semblance of normalcy, and get a good night's sleep at last. We all know he can, but in the meantime, it's a darn good story - one of the best. Creative situation and unusual resolution.
May 19, 2017
en yleensä lue rikostarinoita. ei ole mun suosikki laji. mutta kunhan löysin kirjan kreeta-saarella muiden suomenkielisen kirjoiden kanssa ja jätin muita kirjoja sinne, oli pakko lukea sen. toivon, että myös tämä auttaisi suomen kielen taidon säilyttämiseen. juoni oli hyvää ja täytyy sanoa että varsin kirjan keski- ja loppuosa veivat mukaan. oli tarpeeksi nerokas, tarina eteni aluksi hitaasti, sitten nopeammalla tahdilla. hahmot olivat tärkeät, mutta eivät tehnyt niin suuren vaikutuksen minulle. pitkät selitykset elleryltä, miten sai rikokset selvittyä, olivat vähän tuskallisia. niitä tulikin monta. olisi pitänyt saada niitä vähemmällä sanoilla kasaan.
January 4, 2026
Rol de personagens mega interessante, assassinatos super bem pensados. Ellery Queen nunca me desiludes 🤌🏻
July 21, 2021
(Some talk about the ending - no names named but some details which may be spoilery.)
I haven't really read any 3rd period Queen, but I know what they're like - while they have murders with stunning solutions, the mysteries are supposed to take backseat to the characterization, especially the citizens of the town Wrightsville and Ellery himself. This, however, is slightly different. Thought to be a manuscript from the 2nd period which was scrapped after Agatha Christie released And Then There Were None, then reworked after Dannay and Lee published Calamity Town, There Was an Old Woman is clearly the intricate kind of puzzle from the Nationality Era, but with more interesting characters and a more interesting Ellery - not unlike Halfway House in that regard.
The best part of this novel is seeing the crazy Potts family. Led by the elderly but cunningly tyrannical Cornelia Potts, the family runs the Potts Shoe company, selling shoes to the lower class for decades. She has has six children from two husband's, three kids each. Her first husband Bacchus was kind of loopy until he up and disappeared, and Stephen Brent, his replacement, the exact opposite - he has taken the Potts name himself instead of vice versa, and he's brought his obese war-buddy Major Gotch to live with the family.
Her eldest son, Thurlow, is obsessed with protecting the Potts name and sues people for slander at the slightest joke of which he or his family is the victim. Louella is convinced she's the inventor of the century, and locks herself away to meddle with chemicals and plastics, only coming out do demand more "research money". Horatio, the last child fathered by Bacchus, believes that man is happiest when he embraces his inner child - he lives in a house straight out of Snow White and spends his day writing kids' books and flying kites (Yes, this is exactly as weird as it sounds.)
Thankfully, the Cornelia-Stephen Brent children are much more sane than their older half-siblings. Robert and Maclyn are twins; they look alike, speak alike, think alike, and work alike - the two are Vice Presidents of Sales, Advertising, etc. for the Potts Company and they virtually run the business. Sheila, the youngest, is the only one eager to relinquish her surname. She is engaged to be married to the family lawyer, Charley Paxton - who inherited the legal troubles of the Potts from his own father - but Cornelia won't allow the marriage due to her strange fixation on her older three kids (in this case Louella) and her hatred of her kids with Brent.
The plot starts when Ellery, Inspector Queen, and Sergeant Velie - this trip back once again after quite a while of separation - go to witness Thurlow's 37th slander suit against the unfortunately accused (and unfortunately named) Conklin Cliffstatter after the trial they're meant to be witnesses at it postponed. In attendance are Thurlow and Charley at the plaintiff's table, along with Cornelia herself and her personal physician, Dr. Waggoner Innis. Ellery quickly becomes interested in the family, and when Thurlow renounces the legal system and vows to get vengeance on future slanderers through the code of duello - and surprisingly enough, that next slanderer is his own half-brother, Robert. Ellery, Sheila, Charley, and the twins hatch a plan to replace the single bullet in each gun to be used on the duel with blanks, and it pays off - until the duel itself, when Ellery gives Thurlow the gun, begins the duel as "Master of Ceremonies", and sees Thurlow shoot Robert through the heart, killing him. Clearly, someone involved in the family affairs has replaced the bullet. Thurlow himself, Charlie, and Sheila have solid alibis, while the others do not - and they always could have heard the plan by eavesdropping. It will only be after two additional deaths, but Ellery will crack this strange nut of a case.
About the Christie comparisons - this is nowhere close to the plot of And Then There Were None. Nobody stranded on islands or houses, no mysterious hosts, and as I said, only three deaths instead of ten. If you want a Queen with a high body count, try Cat of Many Tails - I haven't read that one yet, but I hear that one has no less than nine victims. The mystery here is actually pretty decent overall. The clueing is both concrete and abstract - such strange clues as a bowl of cold soup, missing guns which are the same models of the two used in the duel, and a written confession brought into question (that's not a spoiler, since a confession that comes into play three-fifths into the book is probably not the real deal) succeed in dazzling and confusing the readers away from the truth. After a false solution from that written confession, Ellery ambles about a bit before finding a new vital clue and using it to prove an impenetrable case against not completely unsurprising person, and there are some parts about it that I just really love. But wait, there are still thirty pages left, and Queen is not one to do some post-solution falling action, especially with such a puzzle-oriented title as this. Well, Ellery finally realizes the full truth behind the crimes and reveals his findings in possibly the most dramatic way ever, which I will not reveal here. He then does something interesting - he uses the new evidence he's realized not to destroy the previous solution, but to add onto it, and in this way brilliantly shows the cast of characters who is really behind the terrible deeds, and it is indeed a much more surprising choice. Plus, for once the investigating team actually cares about having concrete evidence against the murderer that can get them found guilty in court, and in this case that evidence is not bad at all.
If the book has ended here in the absolute chaos of the penultimate chapter, or maybe halfway through the last chapter, it would be fine. It'd be great! But in the last two or so pages of this book Dannay and Lee do something really weird - don't worry, not weird like The Burning Court, (at least that book's unique ending has a point,) but nonetheless sudden and seemingly without sound reason. All of a sudden they turn one of the (unique) characters in the book into a recurring character from the Ellery Queen radio show, making this whole book a backstory for that character. And they don't even do it well; it comes off so forced! I mean, you have this greatly written puzzle, with strange personages and mysterious murders, and you turn it into a sudden radio-show tie-in for no tangible reason!? Huh!?!?
That gripe aside (and a very big gripe it is, it cost this book a whole star,) this is definitely on of the best Queens in terms of fair-play mystery plotting and one of the best where that intricate plotting meets actually interesting characters. Sure, some of them have only one big quirk which gets capitalized on, but it's better than having 25 suspects who all give their alibis intermittently, show one emotion (if we're lucky,) and the that's it. At least this book made me laugh out loud a couple times.
I haven't really read any 3rd period Queen, but I know what they're like - while they have murders with stunning solutions, the mysteries are supposed to take backseat to the characterization, especially the citizens of the town Wrightsville and Ellery himself. This, however, is slightly different. Thought to be a manuscript from the 2nd period which was scrapped after Agatha Christie released And Then There Were None, then reworked after Dannay and Lee published Calamity Town, There Was an Old Woman is clearly the intricate kind of puzzle from the Nationality Era, but with more interesting characters and a more interesting Ellery - not unlike Halfway House in that regard.
The best part of this novel is seeing the crazy Potts family. Led by the elderly but cunningly tyrannical Cornelia Potts, the family runs the Potts Shoe company, selling shoes to the lower class for decades. She has has six children from two husband's, three kids each. Her first husband Bacchus was kind of loopy until he up and disappeared, and Stephen Brent, his replacement, the exact opposite - he has taken the Potts name himself instead of vice versa, and he's brought his obese war-buddy Major Gotch to live with the family.
Her eldest son, Thurlow, is obsessed with protecting the Potts name and sues people for slander at the slightest joke of which he or his family is the victim. Louella is convinced she's the inventor of the century, and locks herself away to meddle with chemicals and plastics, only coming out do demand more "research money". Horatio, the last child fathered by Bacchus, believes that man is happiest when he embraces his inner child - he lives in a house straight out of Snow White and spends his day writing kids' books and flying kites (Yes, this is exactly as weird as it sounds.)
Thankfully, the Cornelia-Stephen Brent children are much more sane than their older half-siblings. Robert and Maclyn are twins; they look alike, speak alike, think alike, and work alike - the two are Vice Presidents of Sales, Advertising, etc. for the Potts Company and they virtually run the business. Sheila, the youngest, is the only one eager to relinquish her surname. She is engaged to be married to the family lawyer, Charley Paxton - who inherited the legal troubles of the Potts from his own father - but Cornelia won't allow the marriage due to her strange fixation on her older three kids (in this case Louella) and her hatred of her kids with Brent.
The plot starts when Ellery, Inspector Queen, and Sergeant Velie - this trip back once again after quite a while of separation - go to witness Thurlow's 37th slander suit against the unfortunately accused (and unfortunately named) Conklin Cliffstatter after the trial they're meant to be witnesses at it postponed. In attendance are Thurlow and Charley at the plaintiff's table, along with Cornelia herself and her personal physician, Dr. Waggoner Innis. Ellery quickly becomes interested in the family, and when Thurlow renounces the legal system and vows to get vengeance on future slanderers through the code of duello - and surprisingly enough, that next slanderer is his own half-brother, Robert. Ellery, Sheila, Charley, and the twins hatch a plan to replace the single bullet in each gun to be used on the duel with blanks, and it pays off - until the duel itself, when Ellery gives Thurlow the gun, begins the duel as "Master of Ceremonies", and sees Thurlow shoot Robert through the heart, killing him. Clearly, someone involved in the family affairs has replaced the bullet. Thurlow himself, Charlie, and Sheila have solid alibis, while the others do not - and they always could have heard the plan by eavesdropping. It will only be after two additional deaths, but Ellery will crack this strange nut of a case.
About the Christie comparisons - this is nowhere close to the plot of And Then There Were None. Nobody stranded on islands or houses, no mysterious hosts, and as I said, only three deaths instead of ten. If you want a Queen with a high body count, try Cat of Many Tails - I haven't read that one yet, but I hear that one has no less than nine victims. The mystery here is actually pretty decent overall. The clueing is both concrete and abstract - such strange clues as a bowl of cold soup, missing guns which are the same models of the two used in the duel, and a written confession brought into question (that's not a spoiler, since a confession that comes into play three-fifths into the book is probably not the real deal) succeed in dazzling and confusing the readers away from the truth. After a false solution from that written confession, Ellery ambles about a bit before finding a new vital clue and using it to prove an impenetrable case against not completely unsurprising person, and there are some parts about it that I just really love. But wait, there are still thirty pages left, and Queen is not one to do some post-solution falling action, especially with such a puzzle-oriented title as this. Well, Ellery finally realizes the full truth behind the crimes and reveals his findings in possibly the most dramatic way ever, which I will not reveal here. He then does something interesting - he uses the new evidence he's realized not to destroy the previous solution, but to add onto it, and in this way brilliantly shows the cast of characters who is really behind the terrible deeds, and it is indeed a much more surprising choice. Plus, for once the investigating team actually cares about having concrete evidence against the murderer that can get them found guilty in court, and in this case that evidence is not bad at all.
If the book has ended here in the absolute chaos of the penultimate chapter, or maybe halfway through the last chapter, it would be fine. It'd be great! But in the last two or so pages of this book Dannay and Lee do something really weird - don't worry, not weird like The Burning Court, (at least that book's unique ending has a point,) but nonetheless sudden and seemingly without sound reason. All of a sudden they turn one of the (unique) characters in the book into a recurring character from the Ellery Queen radio show, making this whole book a backstory for that character. And they don't even do it well; it comes off so forced! I mean, you have this greatly written puzzle, with strange personages and mysterious murders, and you turn it into a sudden radio-show tie-in for no tangible reason!? Huh!?!?
That gripe aside (and a very big gripe it is, it cost this book a whole star,) this is definitely on of the best Queens in terms of fair-play mystery plotting and one of the best where that intricate plotting meets actually interesting characters. Sure, some of them have only one big quirk which gets capitalized on, but it's better than having 25 suspects who all give their alibis intermittently, show one emotion (if we're lucky,) and the that's it. At least this book made me laugh out loud a couple times.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 14, 2013
Ellery finds himself embroiled in the turmoil of a crazy family with a wicked and controlling woman for a mother. The mother, Cornelia Potts, has and is sacrificing her three rational grown children’s lives and wellbeing to serve her own power play and for the whims of her other three mentally insane children.
The story begins as Cornelia urges on her crazy son, Thurlow, in a suit claiming slander against the honorable Potts name. The craziness moves quickly onto Thurlow challenging his younger half-brother to a duel and killing the competent man at dawn despite the attempts of Ellery to avert the tragedy.
Insanity continues as more family members die.
Finally Ellery begins to put together the motive and plot behind all the murders and death.
I found this story difficult to get into at the beginning due to all the slang from the reporters and police officers covering the slander case. Once I got to the Palace, the house where the old woman raised her children, I was quite enjoying the twists and turns and additions from Mother Goose.
And I’m glad Ellery saved the innocent family members in the end, but the last chapter, could have been left off. I know this is a vintage mystery (1943), and I suspect that there is a reason that they are getting Sheila/Nikki into Ellery’s office, but really a multimillionaire secretary? Even back in the day, why would she do that?
The story begins as Cornelia urges on her crazy son, Thurlow, in a suit claiming slander against the honorable Potts name. The craziness moves quickly onto Thurlow challenging his younger half-brother to a duel and killing the competent man at dawn despite the attempts of Ellery to avert the tragedy.
Insanity continues as more family members die.
Finally Ellery begins to put together the motive and plot behind all the murders and death.
I found this story difficult to get into at the beginning due to all the slang from the reporters and police officers covering the slander case. Once I got to the Palace, the house where the old woman raised her children, I was quite enjoying the twists and turns and additions from Mother Goose.
And I’m glad Ellery saved the innocent family members in the end, but the last chapter, could have been left off. I know this is a vintage mystery (1943), and I suspect that there is a reason that they are getting Sheila/Nikki into Ellery’s office, but really a multimillionaire secretary? Even back in the day, why would she do that?
December 1, 2015
It was a couple dozen pages in that I knew I was in trouble. This Queen "mystery" is an unfortunate one where it's clear the author's knew the ending and then forced the poor constructed story.
There really is no excuse for how bad this is. Something happens very early that the Queen character would never have missed. Of course, that oversight was what the authors had to use to continue the story. Then a series of characters act as if police procedure is determined by the public. Again all to build the story. The worse part is that it's do damned obvious. How did the duo, known as Ellery Queen, let this happen. Why did an editor not flag it. Sounds like an issue of speeding a contracted book out.
If you can view this more as a fairy tale, which isn't hard once into the contents, then this book has some very distinct characters. Queen et al of the regular cast are written per usual with the exception that they are otherwise entirely inept in this book.
This really comes down to the horrible , obvious ending that is written as if Queen was a brilliant genius. Certainly this is the worse book I've read in the series.
Nevertheless, if all could be ignored, the writing is good...
Bottom line: i don't recommend this book. 3 out of ten points.
There really is no excuse for how bad this is. Something happens very early that the Queen character would never have missed. Of course, that oversight was what the authors had to use to continue the story. Then a series of characters act as if police procedure is determined by the public. Again all to build the story. The worse part is that it's do damned obvious. How did the duo, known as Ellery Queen, let this happen. Why did an editor not flag it. Sounds like an issue of speeding a contracted book out.
If you can view this more as a fairy tale, which isn't hard once into the contents, then this book has some very distinct characters. Queen et al of the regular cast are written per usual with the exception that they are otherwise entirely inept in this book.
This really comes down to the horrible , obvious ending that is written as if Queen was a brilliant genius. Certainly this is the worse book I've read in the series.
Nevertheless, if all could be ignored, the writing is good...
Bottom line: i don't recommend this book. 3 out of ten points.
February 29, 2016
3.5* I'm not sure if I ever read an Ellery Queen story before (maybe in the early 70s), but after getting through the first 15 pages, I really enjoyed this story. Because this is an older mystery written in 1943, it was at first difficult for me to get adjusted to the writing style, language, etc. for this era and author. But, once I got the hang of it, it was a great little mystery. There were a couple of 'that makes no sense' bits which my son and I had fun discussing. About a rich eccentric old lady that's gotten her fortune from selling shoes. She has 6 children from 2 marriages - the 3 from her first marriage are all unbalanced wackos, and the 3 from her second marriage are targeted for murder. This has fun characters with lots of clues and twists for Ellery to puzzle out to help his Dad, a police Inspector, solve the 'whodunit' mystery. Good little mystery with some humor and an entertaining story. I'm going to see if I can find another one soon.
September 20, 2016
The setup was certainly interesting, but the craziness of the characters and settings started to feel a bit claustrophobia-inducing over time. The writers came up with an interesting cast of characters, to be sure, and they might sustain interest if the writers hadn't brought their insanity and eccentric behavior into every possible paragraph. The many times the case was "solved" and then reopened got to be a bit annoying, too.
And there were several important, fairly obvious clues that Queen missed, but instead of noticing those clues and working out the solution from there, he finally came to the right conclusion based on a tiny thing that he improbably noticed at the very last moment and that the readers hadn't been informed of before. Sigh.
Pros: Some funny bits, unusual characters, unique mystery idea
Cons: over-characterization, over-plotting, over-the-top setting, over-suspense-building, overly stupid detectives.
And there were several important, fairly obvious clues that Queen missed, but instead of noticing those clues and working out the solution from there, he finally came to the right conclusion based on a tiny thing that he improbably noticed at the very last moment and that the readers hadn't been informed of before. Sigh.
Pros: Some funny bits, unusual characters, unique mystery idea
Cons: over-characterization, over-plotting, over-the-top setting, over-suspense-building, overly stupid detectives.
November 28, 2017
I listened to this audiobook. Ellery Queen is a somewhat pompous son, a novelist, of a police detective. He inserts himself into cases and helps his father solve baffling murders. In this book a mean and nasty woman pits her children against each other and the world. She is old and ill and uses her considerable power as the matriarch of a shoe manufacturing empire to manipulate her offspring. All the family seems slightly insane except for one daughter and the the woman's mousy second husband. When one brother kills another in a duel over "honor" it seems cut and dried. But it is an elaborate game. When another brother is killed things get really complex. Ellery sees the happenings as living out the children's poem "There was an old woman who,lived in a shoe...". These Ellery Queen books are quite old and the slang is sometimes hackneyed, but the plot of this story has several twists and turns that make it enjoyable.
January 26, 2017
Queen likes to have odd, quirky characters in his books, and this one provides them in droves. Half of the Potts clan are eccentric, borderline lunatics. Half are level-headed, sane types. And it seems someone is killing off the sane ones. A good tale, although you have to swallow some unlikely events (would they really have let Cornelia Potts get off with just a slap on the wrist after nearly murdering Sgt. Velie?) And the "introduction" of Nikki Porter at the end seemed strange and tacked on for no good reason.
June 7, 2018
I bought this book because I've read mysteries set in earlier time periods and most set in the current day so I wanted to read one set in the 1940s or 50s (this one in the 40s). I also heard good things about Ellery Queen. I enjoyed the plot and the characters. The only thing about this one I didn't like was how most of the book is written like a normal novel, but a few scenes are written in the format of a movie script.
January 20, 2016
My first Ellery Queen novel. (I've scene the Jim Hutton series and read one of the short stories). Obvious ly a period piece now but once it got going it had its fair share of twists and turns. right up to the last couple of pages.
July 30, 2024
Ellery Queen was a pseudonym for writing team Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, who wrote about a character named Ellery Queen (who apparently writes mystery novels? Maybe being a little too cute, there). He's one of the acknowledged masters of the form, being the fourth writer (fourth and fifth? Whatever, the grammar is awkward) to be named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, in 1961. I'm sure I'll dip back into his considerable corpus, but this novel does not impress.
Mainly, I think the central premise of this novel is gibberish, and that kind of undercuts whatever merits it might have. So here's what happens (this is "back cover blurb" stuff, no real spoilers). A dude wants to kill his brother in a duel. Their sister's boyfriend tries to put a stop anyone from dying by replacing the bullets with blanks. But then someone else changes them back. So the dude kills his brother. He loads a gun with the intent of using that loaded gun to kill someone; then, come the dawn, he takes the gun, meets his brother, and shoots him dead. And the book goes on to act as if he can't be arrested or treated as a murderer, because of the shenanigans that went on during the night without his knowledge. It's completely insane! Sure, the night-time bullet-switcher *also* needs to be arrested (I want to say as an accessory before the fact), but it's not one or the other, they're both guilty.
And it's not hard to make this kind of plot work; there are at least two obvious avenues. First, what I said; the dude is arrested for killing his brother, and the novel is about Queen tracking down the other person. Or, varying things more significantly, but actually gesturing at the idea of having the person whose hand does the deed be innocent, what if the man only wants to scare his brother to teach him a lesson, so he bullies him into a duel but plans that the guns will be secretly loaded with blanks, so nobody will actually be hurt? And then some villain replaces the blanks with real bullets? Anything instead of what we got.
The investigation is also decidedly limp. Ellery Queen spends the novel being fairly useless; he misses obvious clues (to the point that I assumed it was authorial error; for example, ), he doesn't help find the central piece of missing evidence, his unsuccessful plan to trap the killer was stupid and could have got him killed ( and is the kind of thing I'd roll my eyes at fondly in a Victorian novel; by 1943, it's no longer fond. And when he finally does figure things out, it's based, not on the evidence the reader knows about, but on a piece of visual evidence we don't have access to. Boo.
On a more positive note, I did enjoy the family. Yes, they're broadly drawn and unrealistic, but a household divided into two sets of step siblings, one set, beloved by the mother because they're insane and need her to function, the other set, who do not need her, and are correspondingly hated, has a kind of awful Gothicness that I vibe with.
Mainly, I think the central premise of this novel is gibberish, and that kind of undercuts whatever merits it might have. So here's what happens (this is "back cover blurb" stuff, no real spoilers). A dude wants to kill his brother in a duel. Their sister's boyfriend tries to put a stop anyone from dying by replacing the bullets with blanks. But then someone else changes them back. So the dude kills his brother. He loads a gun with the intent of using that loaded gun to kill someone; then, come the dawn, he takes the gun, meets his brother, and shoots him dead. And the book goes on to act as if he can't be arrested or treated as a murderer, because of the shenanigans that went on during the night without his knowledge. It's completely insane! Sure, the night-time bullet-switcher *also* needs to be arrested (I want to say as an accessory before the fact), but it's not one or the other, they're both guilty.
And it's not hard to make this kind of plot work; there are at least two obvious avenues. First, what I said; the dude is arrested for killing his brother, and the novel is about Queen tracking down the other person. Or, varying things more significantly, but actually gesturing at the idea of having the person whose hand does the deed be innocent, what if the man only wants to scare his brother to teach him a lesson, so he bullies him into a duel but plans that the guns will be secretly loaded with blanks, so nobody will actually be hurt? And then some villain replaces the blanks with real bullets? Anything instead of what we got.
The investigation is also decidedly limp. Ellery Queen spends the novel being fairly useless; he misses obvious clues (to the point that I assumed it was authorial error; for example, ), he doesn't help find the central piece of missing evidence, his unsuccessful plan to trap the killer was stupid and could have got him killed ( and is the kind of thing I'd roll my eyes at fondly in a Victorian novel; by 1943, it's no longer fond. And when he finally does figure things out, it's based, not on the evidence the reader knows about, but on a piece of visual evidence we don't have access to. Boo.
On a more positive note, I did enjoy the family. Yes, they're broadly drawn and unrealistic, but a household divided into two sets of step siblings, one set, beloved by the mother because they're insane and need her to function, the other set, who do not need her, and are correspondingly hated, has a kind of awful Gothicness that I vibe with.
Read
February 27, 2024I spent half this book distracted out of my mind by the complete lack of consequences for what is at minimum manslaughter, and arguably murder. The premise of the book is a duel between two half-brothers, instigated (and insisted on) by one of them. The plan is for this insanity to be foiled by using blanks in the guns. But when the dust clears, a man lies dead, and while we know who pulled the trigger, we don’t know who was responsible for the live ammo.
The thing is, the shooter planned to murder his half-brother, and then he succeeded. The replacement of the ammo with blanks doesn’t change any of this. He should’ve been arrested and charged with murder immediately, and the excuses the book provides against this are to me incredibly unconvincing. Even if there is a second murderer out there responsible for the morning’s events resulting in an actual murder, the shooter still planned and executed a killing! Arrest him, and then work on catching the person responsible for the ammo.
None of this so far is actually spoilers beyond the first part of the book, this is the premise of the mystery. (And for anyone who’s finished the book, elements of my phrasing might be quite amusing.)
What is a spoiler is that arguably lot of the developments in the rest of the book could’ve been avoided if they’d just arrested Thurlow right away - or at least they would’ve been more difficult to implement. Which is likely why police forces aren’t supposed to just let people who successfully kill people wander about! (And that’s not even touching on their treatment of the Old Woman shooting at and almost killing a police sergeant.) The ending reveals at least do fit with the story and clues as a whole, which isn’t true of all mystery novels and which I do appreciate.
This is the first Ellery Queen I’ve read, and I can see both why it was so popular (the writing mostly does hum along) and why it didn’t have the same lasting impact as so many other detectives, some of whom were perhaps even not as popular. It’s got a little more oomph than Perry Mason, and some compelling characters. Maybe on reread I’ll be less distracted by the way the police let killers roam around and be able to pay more attention to the rest. Or maybe I don’t end up picking up an Ellery Queen again aha, I’ve found a lot of popular mystery writers interesting enough to finish one of their books, but not so interesting that I go back for more. Frustrations/pet peeves aside, this was a fairly fun romp.
The thing is, the shooter planned to murder his half-brother, and then he succeeded. The replacement of the ammo with blanks doesn’t change any of this. He should’ve been arrested and charged with murder immediately, and the excuses the book provides against this are to me incredibly unconvincing. Even if there is a second murderer out there responsible for the morning’s events resulting in an actual murder, the shooter still planned and executed a killing! Arrest him, and then work on catching the person responsible for the ammo.
None of this so far is actually spoilers beyond the first part of the book, this is the premise of the mystery. (And for anyone who’s finished the book, elements of my phrasing might be quite amusing.)
What is a spoiler is that arguably lot of the developments in the rest of the book could’ve been avoided if they’d just arrested Thurlow right away - or at least they would’ve been more difficult to implement. Which is likely why police forces aren’t supposed to just let people who successfully kill people wander about! (And that’s not even touching on their treatment of the Old Woman shooting at and almost killing a police sergeant.) The ending reveals at least do fit with the story and clues as a whole, which isn’t true of all mystery novels and which I do appreciate.
This is the first Ellery Queen I’ve read, and I can see both why it was so popular (the writing mostly does hum along) and why it didn’t have the same lasting impact as so many other detectives, some of whom were perhaps even not as popular. It’s got a little more oomph than Perry Mason, and some compelling characters. Maybe on reread I’ll be less distracted by the way the police let killers roam around and be able to pay more attention to the rest. Or maybe I don’t end up picking up an Ellery Queen again aha, I’ve found a lot of popular mystery writers interesting enough to finish one of their books, but not so interesting that I go back for more. Frustrations/pet peeves aside, this was a fairly fun romp.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 24, 2023
Not a bad book, by far not the worst book in the series. I'd say it isn't even within the worst 5 books in the series (but that list is for a different time). It was well written with fun dialogue and I even enjoyed (and didn't suspect at all) the twist at the end. However, the actual mystery, the whodunit portion of this book was highly unnecessary. The mystery, for the most part, didn't need to happen (besides figuring out the twist ending). I mean, even if Ellery was sure that there was some other hanky panky going on with who perpetrated the murder, that doesn't change the fact that Phew! Ok. That was my rant. Again, it was an enjoyable read, and the plot twist was delightfully twisty, I just can't understand the lack of action that occurred with the murder first took place. Cripes.
March 7, 2022
“C’era una vecchia signora che viveva in una scarpa,
aveva così tanti bambini da non saperne che fare!
Così diede loro minestra senza pane,
e dopo averli sculacciati li mandò a letto!”
Spesso gli appassionati di Ellery Queen nominano il loro romanzo o i loro romanzi preferiti, di solito ho sentito parlare di Dieci incredibili giorni, Il paese del maleficio, Il mistero delle croci egizie, L’affare Khalkis, Il caso dei fratelli siamesi. Poche volte viene menzionato questo romanzo, che mi è stato consigliato da un amico che considero il mio esperto di fiducia sui gialli classici. E come sempre il consiglio è risultato azzeccato
Si tratta di un romanzo particolare, umoristico e grottesco, dove la parte grottesca permette al lettore di entrare in questo mondo fantastico e di tollerare una soglia di sospensione dell’incredulità più alta del solito. Nonostante la trama sia un po’ fantasiosa e ci siano effettivamente elementi poco realistici, la parte della soluzione risulta perfettamente logica, come nella migliore tradizione di Queen. Colpi di scena come se non ci fosse un domani, personaggi e situazioni bizzarri, il filo conduttore della filastrocca.
Vi presento la situazione iniziale: una ricca e stravagante imprenditrice ha sei figli, tre da ognuno dei due mariti diversi. I primi tre completamente pazzi, tanto che il maggiore sfida a duello uno dei fratellastri per motivi futilissimi. La sfida avrà una piega inaspettata, ma sarà solo l’inizio di un percorso, con Ellery che (unendo in sé Holmes e Watson, Poirot e Hastings) parte completamente nel pallone sembrando completamente sciocco, ma poi poco a poco scopre la verità con il consueto acume. La soluzione combina in modo eccellente tematiche già usate da Christie e Van Dine, aggiungendone di nuove, in particolare un concetto che Queen stesso e la Christie riprenderanno più avanti e che è diventato uno dei topoi del giallo contemporaneo.
Insomma, una lettura leggera e gradevole, ben costruita anche dal punto di vista giallo. Ve lo consiglio.
aveva così tanti bambini da non saperne che fare!
Così diede loro minestra senza pane,
e dopo averli sculacciati li mandò a letto!”
Spesso gli appassionati di Ellery Queen nominano il loro romanzo o i loro romanzi preferiti, di solito ho sentito parlare di Dieci incredibili giorni, Il paese del maleficio, Il mistero delle croci egizie, L’affare Khalkis, Il caso dei fratelli siamesi. Poche volte viene menzionato questo romanzo, che mi è stato consigliato da un amico che considero il mio esperto di fiducia sui gialli classici. E come sempre il consiglio è risultato azzeccato
Si tratta di un romanzo particolare, umoristico e grottesco, dove la parte grottesca permette al lettore di entrare in questo mondo fantastico e di tollerare una soglia di sospensione dell’incredulità più alta del solito. Nonostante la trama sia un po’ fantasiosa e ci siano effettivamente elementi poco realistici, la parte della soluzione risulta perfettamente logica, come nella migliore tradizione di Queen. Colpi di scena come se non ci fosse un domani, personaggi e situazioni bizzarri, il filo conduttore della filastrocca.
Vi presento la situazione iniziale: una ricca e stravagante imprenditrice ha sei figli, tre da ognuno dei due mariti diversi. I primi tre completamente pazzi, tanto che il maggiore sfida a duello uno dei fratellastri per motivi futilissimi. La sfida avrà una piega inaspettata, ma sarà solo l’inizio di un percorso, con Ellery che (unendo in sé Holmes e Watson, Poirot e Hastings) parte completamente nel pallone sembrando completamente sciocco, ma poi poco a poco scopre la verità con il consueto acume. La soluzione combina in modo eccellente tematiche già usate da Christie e Van Dine, aggiungendone di nuove, in particolare un concetto che Queen stesso e la Christie riprenderanno più avanti e che è diventato uno dei topoi del giallo contemporaneo.
Insomma, una lettura leggera e gradevole, ben costruita anche dal punto di vista giallo. Ve lo consiglio.
November 22, 2021
Published 3 years after Agatha Christie's One, Two, Buckle My Shoe and quite possibly inspired thereby, but Agatha did a much better job. I enjoyed the first part, but this book goes on too long and depends too heavily on the nursery rhyme format, to the place that other rhymes besides the title one have to be shoehorned in to the ever more convoluted "plot." It reminded me of those old time radio plays, or a third-rate detective movie of the time. The cheese-dog ending was laughable but not funny.
For several years in the 1970s I subscribed to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The short stories were of course written by others who did a much better job. Turns out that "Ellery Queen" was two different people, always a recipe for disappointment in my experience. This was my first Ellery Queen novel and it will be my last.
For several years in the 1970s I subscribed to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The short stories were of course written by others who did a much better job. Turns out that "Ellery Queen" was two different people, always a recipe for disappointment in my experience. This was my first Ellery Queen novel and it will be my last.
June 22, 2019
Un romanzo molto particolare e molto piacevole. Una storia popolata da strani personaggi che sembrano provenire da altri mondi (si nota anche qui l'influenza di "Alice nel paese delle meraviglie", libro amato dai due cugini americani), con un delitto apparentemente banale ma che si rivela particolarmente ingegnoso. La doppia soluzione è stupefacente e perfettamente logica, nel puro stile queeniano. Quindi non posso che dare un voto di eccellenza (anche per il divertimento della figura della temutissima Cornelia Potts).
October 15, 2020
A family of crazy people live in a mansion near the river. Mother is in charge. One boy is fixated on honor and takes people to court all the time. Then he decides to win his honor back with duels
A daughter is a mad scientists. And the last son is so afraid of the adult world he relives his childhood. Of the three kids he is the most sane, just really eccentric
Three other children by a different father, are sane and threatened by the crazy ones. Enter Ellery Queen. He stumbles, trips, staggers through the investigation as the bodies pile up.
A daughter is a mad scientists. And the last son is so afraid of the adult world he relives his childhood. Of the three kids he is the most sane, just really eccentric
Three other children by a different father, are sane and threatened by the crazy ones. Enter Ellery Queen. He stumbles, trips, staggers through the investigation as the bodies pile up.
August 3, 2024
Ellery gets embroiled with a family in the shoe business, most of the member of which are crazy. When one of the sons shoots another in a duel, something more than eccentricity is seen to be at play, because the fatal bullet was supposed to be a blank. The whodunit part was well done. I could congratulate myself for figuring out part of it but still be surprised by the other half. Unfortunately, the plot was very slow in parts, and the family, containing as it did some repulsive characters, was not good company through those parts.
May 5, 2021
I don’t know what it is, but there are some Ellery Queen books that I thoroughly enjoy, while there are others that I absolutely despise. This is one of the former, and I really enjoyed it. This is also the book where we finally meet Nikki Porter. I had always wondered where she came from, and now we know. And we also know if she is extremely rich, even though no mention was made of it in other books.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 29, 2022
I was impressed. The plot was simultaneously bizarre, endearing, and riveting, culminating in a jaw-dropping conclusion. The characters were vivid and distinct, both Queens (and also Velie!) played their most typical selves in satisfyingly prominent roles, and my attention was kept throughout all 300+ pages. I would call this the quintessential Ellery Queen novel. Ellery and company at their best.
November 23, 2018
Listened to the audiobook. I think this was my first Ellery Queen book ever--not sure what took me so long. It was entertaining (if absurd, as many mysteries are) and had some enjoyable twists. I do have a gripe, though: those investigating the crimes were sometimes foolish and dense and missed obvious points, which had to be spelled out. I thought they should be a lot keener.
July 7, 2019
I read many Ellery Queen books back when the cover picture on this volume would have been trendy, so I've forgotten all the plots. The Classic Mysteries podcast featured There Was an Old Woman about the time I was cleaning out my parents' house and found this copy. Many, many twists and turns in the plot, but Ellery saves the day.
July 10, 2020
A solid if slightly predictable Queen. This, like Calamity Town, is early phase three Queen, and as such, is much better than the later Queens I've been reading lately. Not quite keep-worthy, but readable and rewarding.
April 16, 2022
This was rather clever though I figured out who the killer was I did not figure out the evidence. There's a little bit of history at the end which will make sense in the future. And no he doesn't get married!
June 16, 2022
An okay example of the mystery story of the 1940's, this is -- at least -- not as outlandishly complicated as many of the Ellery Queen tales are. It has some surprises, but the solution isn't that great a shock. OK, but nothing special.
May 28, 2019
Solid mystery, good puzzle and some kooky characters in a bizarre setting.
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