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Ellery Queen Detective #2
The French Powder Mystery
Book by Queen, Ellery
316 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1930
482 people are currently reading
989 people want to read
About the author
Ellery Queen
1,786 books485 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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April 13, 2024
I always like to have a second book to read before going to sleep...............something light and non-history or military related. I returned to this Ellery Queen book which I read several years ago and my original review is below.
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You have to be an avid reader of the golden age of mystery to appreciate these early Ellery Queen books. Written in 1929, when people wore pince nez, spats, and used racial epithets, it might be hard going for everyone since it is so dated. But with that said and being obsessed with that era of the mystery story, I had fun with this book.
The plot, as are most of these early books, is ridiculously complex but that is the beauty of the early Queen works. And Ellery has not quite evolved into the character we are used to later in the series and is a bit too effete. A murder takes place in a large department store and everyone is a suspect.....there are even "dope fiends" involved, heroin being the drug of choice. I'll say no more about the story since it is too involved for a synopsis but it moves right along with new clues popping up all over the place. Very enjoyable for the fan of the old mystery and it is fun to read the first of the books of a character who would become iconic through the long life of this series.
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You have to be an avid reader of the golden age of mystery to appreciate these early Ellery Queen books. Written in 1929, when people wore pince nez, spats, and used racial epithets, it might be hard going for everyone since it is so dated. But with that said and being obsessed with that era of the mystery story, I had fun with this book.
The plot, as are most of these early books, is ridiculously complex but that is the beauty of the early Queen works. And Ellery has not quite evolved into the character we are used to later in the series and is a bit too effete. A murder takes place in a large department store and everyone is a suspect.....there are even "dope fiends" involved, heroin being the drug of choice. I'll say no more about the story since it is too involved for a synopsis but it moves right along with new clues popping up all over the place. Very enjoyable for the fan of the old mystery and it is fun to read the first of the books of a character who would become iconic through the long life of this series.
March 5, 2016
The title is misleading. There are two different powders present on the crime scene, but the case cannot be summed up in this title. I like this book. In the past perhaps it would have earned a perfect five stars. Just a friction in the reading experience which denied this fine book a perfect score. The story ends right where the identity of the murderer is revealed. The end is abrupt, so that one gasps. But I like it.
This is the second Ellery Queen book of my reading. The first, "The Roman Hat Mystery" was inferior to this one. The murderer for both books aren't colorfully and audaciously painted. Unlike other great mystery writers, the two writers of this book don't take pains in depicting characters that may be guilty. That's not how they operate. The paucity of detail for the murderer in hindsight reminds me of lesser, downright cozy mysteries. But make no mistake; this story is crafted in a masterful hand.
In the timeline of this work of fiction, the unveiling of the criminal takes 60 hours, counting from the murder itself. Due to this, there aren't any bloated side stories to take care of. There's no fat in the telling. Curiously, no evidence was available for nailing the culprit. That does occur sometimes, but in my naivety I thought the logical process in knowing the criminal would be proof itself even in court. But in all appearances that was not true. I'm happy having read this book and look forward to more from Ellery Queen.
This is the second Ellery Queen book of my reading. The first, "The Roman Hat Mystery" was inferior to this one. The murderer for both books aren't colorfully and audaciously painted. Unlike other great mystery writers, the two writers of this book don't take pains in depicting characters that may be guilty. That's not how they operate. The paucity of detail for the murderer in hindsight reminds me of lesser, downright cozy mysteries. But make no mistake; this story is crafted in a masterful hand.
In the timeline of this work of fiction, the unveiling of the criminal takes 60 hours, counting from the murder itself. Due to this, there aren't any bloated side stories to take care of. There's no fat in the telling. Curiously, no evidence was available for nailing the culprit. That does occur sometimes, but in my naivety I thought the logical process in knowing the criminal would be proof itself even in court. But in all appearances that was not true. I'm happy having read this book and look forward to more from Ellery Queen.
May 7, 2015
Another entry in the Quest for Christie-Likes:
I've now read entries from something close to 10 authors writing in the same time and neighborhood as Agatha Christie. Ellery Queen (really a pseudonym for a writing team of two cousins) belongs right below John Dickson Carr and certainly belongs well within the top tier of pretenders to the Christie throne (for, in my mind, Christie is still matchless).
Really, this should come as no surprise. Queen met great success in the US and eventually spawned an anthology style monthly magazine (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine) that served as one of the more iconic banners of the golden age sub-genre. I would have been shocked had I found that there was no original substance behind the machine.
The first thing one encounters upon reading the book is the formality of the proceeding. The reader is presented with a full list of characters as well as one of two maps relevant to the story. There is no pretension to being a novel of quality- simply an introduction to the puzzle by virtue of the first two of its myriad pieces.
The book proceeds in fairly clockwork fashion- discovery of crime, examination of scene, questioning of suspects, rumination of detectives- all in standard order give or take a chapter. Genre addicts will be very much at home here.
So Queen gets to 3 stars just by adhering the essence of the formula I adore.
Why does it earn that 4th star? Because the answer is clever and feels inevitable upon revelation. I realized that I had been holding several of the necessary deductions in my hands and just never quite strung them together quite right. To see order brought to this disorder, assuming the author has played fair (and Queen largely does), is always a great satisfaction. I will say that my failure to solve the case owes something to my feeling out just how clever the writer was. Early on, I was convinced I had seen the trick of the thing; as it turns out, I had greatly understated the complication and attention to detail with which Queen had constructed the case.
Why doesn't it earn the 5th star? There are some that claim Christie's writing is too simple. These detractors miss entirely the genius of her works. In a mere 200 lightly typeset pages, she constructs puzzles (fair most of the time) to bamboozle even clever minds. French Powder, taking page count and typesetting into account, is roughly twice as long. It is not as great an accomplishment to create a difficult puzzle when the puzzle is granted more, smaller pieces.
On a related note, because the book was so long, it took much longer to read. The Queen duo didn't have the stylistic flourish of Heyer or even Christie, which meant that the book had only the puzzle, itself, to impel the reader on. And it felt that the critical mass must-finish moment occurred much later because there was so much groundwork to lay.
And one last minor criticism- the crime becomes so complicated that Ellery solves a great deal of it well before the denouement. This is a tad anti-climactic, as readers do not have the how-dunnit awaiting them within the final pages.
It is easier to generate longer paragraphs in criticism than in praise- especially when I don't want to spoil the things that do work right. Don't let that turn you off- I look forward to enjoying the works of the Ellery Queen duo for a long time to come.
I've now read entries from something close to 10 authors writing in the same time and neighborhood as Agatha Christie. Ellery Queen (really a pseudonym for a writing team of two cousins) belongs right below John Dickson Carr and certainly belongs well within the top tier of pretenders to the Christie throne (for, in my mind, Christie is still matchless).
Really, this should come as no surprise. Queen met great success in the US and eventually spawned an anthology style monthly magazine (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine) that served as one of the more iconic banners of the golden age sub-genre. I would have been shocked had I found that there was no original substance behind the machine.
The first thing one encounters upon reading the book is the formality of the proceeding. The reader is presented with a full list of characters as well as one of two maps relevant to the story. There is no pretension to being a novel of quality- simply an introduction to the puzzle by virtue of the first two of its myriad pieces.
The book proceeds in fairly clockwork fashion- discovery of crime, examination of scene, questioning of suspects, rumination of detectives- all in standard order give or take a chapter. Genre addicts will be very much at home here.
So Queen gets to 3 stars just by adhering the essence of the formula I adore.
Why does it earn that 4th star? Because the answer is clever and feels inevitable upon revelation. I realized that I had been holding several of the necessary deductions in my hands and just never quite strung them together quite right. To see order brought to this disorder, assuming the author has played fair (and Queen largely does), is always a great satisfaction. I will say that my failure to solve the case owes something to my feeling out just how clever the writer was. Early on, I was convinced I had seen the trick of the thing; as it turns out, I had greatly understated the complication and attention to detail with which Queen had constructed the case.
Why doesn't it earn the 5th star? There are some that claim Christie's writing is too simple. These detractors miss entirely the genius of her works. In a mere 200 lightly typeset pages, she constructs puzzles (fair most of the time) to bamboozle even clever minds. French Powder, taking page count and typesetting into account, is roughly twice as long. It is not as great an accomplishment to create a difficult puzzle when the puzzle is granted more, smaller pieces.
On a related note, because the book was so long, it took much longer to read. The Queen duo didn't have the stylistic flourish of Heyer or even Christie, which meant that the book had only the puzzle, itself, to impel the reader on. And it felt that the critical mass must-finish moment occurred much later because there was so much groundwork to lay.
And one last minor criticism- the crime becomes so complicated that Ellery solves a great deal of it well before the denouement. This is a tad anti-climactic, as readers do not have the how-dunnit awaiting them within the final pages.
It is easier to generate longer paragraphs in criticism than in praise- especially when I don't want to spoil the things that do work right. Don't let that turn you off- I look forward to enjoying the works of the Ellery Queen duo for a long time to come.
April 9, 2010
Come with me to the heyday of the early portion of the twentieth century. Walk with me through the streets of New York, and stop, if you will, at one of the grand old department stores that I have never seen but only read about in books.
I am talking about a store of many floors, full of salespeople and lunch counters, mattress departments, book departments, fabric departments, and store detectives roaming about. The store is run by its owner, who has a luxurious apartment on the top floor, accessible only by those with one of five special keys.
On this particular day, a woman goes to set up a new window display. It consists of a brand new apparatus, imported from France: a bed that folds up into the wall. She readies the window display and opens the curtains to the expectant crowd outside. The crowd watches to see the show of the new luxury hide-away bed from France being opened. The woman turns the lever that opens the machine. As the bed gradually opens from its vertical position, a murdered woman's bloody body is revealed in its interior.
So begins The French Powder Mystery. Like the other Ellery Queen mystery I've read, this book is a great lot of fun and relatively unimportant in terms of any deep philosophical meaning. As a kind of logic puzzle, the mystery is well-set up.
Being a rather inferior reader, I had no idea at all of the culprit until Ellery revealed it at the end. I imagine that the readers of ages past must have been much more sharp than today's audience, because though clues are revealed left and right, and Ellery, at each new clue, seems to be really learning something and coming to new and grand conclusions, I myself was in the dark.
I suppose I've gotten used to the CSI-like device where one person discovers evidence and then turns to their partner and explains, very carefully, what exactly it means.
CHARACTER 1: "Wait! This is McPhearson's shoe. And it has the same DNA as the chew toy we found at the park!"
CHARACTER 2: "Hold on! Doesn't that mean..."
CHARACTER 1: "That's right. Because this DNA matches the other DNA we've already found, that means that the alibi Donald gave us can't be true. And if Donald wasn't at the drive-in like he said he was, he must have been somewhere else."
CHARACTER 2: "You're right. We should find Donald and question him again. It's a good thing our science has given us a new lead with which to solve this mystery."
[Show graphic blow-up of computer-generated double-helix DNA strand with accompanying whooshing sound.:]
In contrast, in the quiet of the murdered woman's empty apartment, Ellery Queen examines each object with care and thought. "The books on this bookshelf," he says, thoughtfully, "don't seem to fit with the personality of the owner."
Later, after interviewing a certain woman, he asks her to return a piece of evidence (a woman's hat) to the closet from whence it came. After she does so, he absurdly removes the hat from the closet and asks a man to put it away. Watching, he observes the differences in the way that the man and the woman put the hat back. And from these kinds of observations, observations about evidence and personality, he comes to conclusions.
Reading this book was like taking a trip into a foreign land: America in the 1920's. We find racism, sexism, gangsters smuggling opium, men in hats and suits, store detectives, anti-vice leagues, tough police lieutenants, wily politicians and, last but not least, people fainting all over the place every time they get a "shock."
We also find, as we always do with good mysteries, the mystery as metaphor. In this case, the lovely facade of a department store window stricken with the grim decay and horror of death is a metaphor for the problems of those who own the department store, themselves putting on a show for all society, themselves living with something bad on the inside. Paradoxically, the mystery serves (by its solving) to reveal to the public something which was hidden about the people in the story.
Unlike the mystery television shows of today, this mystery is an exercise in personality, logic, and judgment. It is written as a kind of mind game with no goal except entertainment. The people of the past were sexist, racist, insulated, and a little silly but, whatever else they were, they were not stupid.
I am talking about a store of many floors, full of salespeople and lunch counters, mattress departments, book departments, fabric departments, and store detectives roaming about. The store is run by its owner, who has a luxurious apartment on the top floor, accessible only by those with one of five special keys.
On this particular day, a woman goes to set up a new window display. It consists of a brand new apparatus, imported from France: a bed that folds up into the wall. She readies the window display and opens the curtains to the expectant crowd outside. The crowd watches to see the show of the new luxury hide-away bed from France being opened. The woman turns the lever that opens the machine. As the bed gradually opens from its vertical position, a murdered woman's bloody body is revealed in its interior.
So begins The French Powder Mystery. Like the other Ellery Queen mystery I've read, this book is a great lot of fun and relatively unimportant in terms of any deep philosophical meaning. As a kind of logic puzzle, the mystery is well-set up.
Being a rather inferior reader, I had no idea at all of the culprit until Ellery revealed it at the end. I imagine that the readers of ages past must have been much more sharp than today's audience, because though clues are revealed left and right, and Ellery, at each new clue, seems to be really learning something and coming to new and grand conclusions, I myself was in the dark.
I suppose I've gotten used to the CSI-like device where one person discovers evidence and then turns to their partner and explains, very carefully, what exactly it means.
CHARACTER 1: "Wait! This is McPhearson's shoe. And it has the same DNA as the chew toy we found at the park!"
CHARACTER 2: "Hold on! Doesn't that mean..."
CHARACTER 1: "That's right. Because this DNA matches the other DNA we've already found, that means that the alibi Donald gave us can't be true. And if Donald wasn't at the drive-in like he said he was, he must have been somewhere else."
CHARACTER 2: "You're right. We should find Donald and question him again. It's a good thing our science has given us a new lead with which to solve this mystery."
[Show graphic blow-up of computer-generated double-helix DNA strand with accompanying whooshing sound.:]
In contrast, in the quiet of the murdered woman's empty apartment, Ellery Queen examines each object with care and thought. "The books on this bookshelf," he says, thoughtfully, "don't seem to fit with the personality of the owner."
Later, after interviewing a certain woman, he asks her to return a piece of evidence (a woman's hat) to the closet from whence it came. After she does so, he absurdly removes the hat from the closet and asks a man to put it away. Watching, he observes the differences in the way that the man and the woman put the hat back. And from these kinds of observations, observations about evidence and personality, he comes to conclusions.
Reading this book was like taking a trip into a foreign land: America in the 1920's. We find racism, sexism, gangsters smuggling opium, men in hats and suits, store detectives, anti-vice leagues, tough police lieutenants, wily politicians and, last but not least, people fainting all over the place every time they get a "shock."
We also find, as we always do with good mysteries, the mystery as metaphor. In this case, the lovely facade of a department store window stricken with the grim decay and horror of death is a metaphor for the problems of those who own the department store, themselves putting on a show for all society, themselves living with something bad on the inside. Paradoxically, the mystery serves (by its solving) to reveal to the public something which was hidden about the people in the story.
Unlike the mystery television shows of today, this mystery is an exercise in personality, logic, and judgment. It is written as a kind of mind game with no goal except entertainment. The people of the past were sexist, racist, insulated, and a little silly but, whatever else they were, they were not stupid.
August 15, 2019
The French Powder Mystery by Ellery Queen is the 2nd book in the Ellery Queen Mystery series. The body of Mrs French, wife of the department store owner, is displayed in the stores window display. I reread this book after an interval of over 40 years and I enjoyed it just as much as before. I love the way that Ellery challenges the reader to come up with the solution before the reveal. A classic whodunnit.
May 1, 2018
The French Powder Mystery (1930) by Ellery Queen has a quite startling beginning. A crowd is gathered on the sidewalk outside of French's Department Store (a very Macy's-like place) eager to watch the daily demonstration of the latest in modern furnishings. The store employee steps into the model living room and bedroom and noon, precisely, begins showing the spectators the amenities of the suite. The focal point is the Murphy bed, hidden in the wall until the demonstrator pushes an ivory button and out pops a most modern bed complete with satin sheets...and the crumpled body of woman.
It isn't long before the woman is identified as the wife of Cyrus French, owner of the store, and French's head of security wastes no time getting hold of the police. Inspector Richard Queen is called to the case and arrives with his son Ellery in tow. The police, including the inspector, tend to focus on the obvious clues, but Ellery's eyes are scanning everything and taking in all the minor details. Books on a desk, a glass-topped table, a setting for a card game, cigarette stubs in an ashtray, the dead woman's lipstick, the display of shoes in a closet and seemingly innocuous phrases in various witnesses' statements all catch his attention and add to the solution.
There are several suspects for the Queens to sift through--employees of the store, Winifred French's first husband, or perhaps even her missing daughter. Motives abound as well--the dead woman had headstrong ways and when she decided to interfere there was little to stop her. Perhaps she interfered just one too many times or perhaps she set her foot down on toes that had been trodden on more than enough? There are also hints that all is not as it should be at French's and maybe Mrs. French stumbled upon the secrets hidden underneath the oh-so-correct surface of the most proper department store. Leave it Ellery to sort through the clues and see through the lies and half-truths told by the suspects in order to hand his father the culprit on a silver platter (from French's kitchenware department, perhaps?).
An intricately plotted mystery with clues galore. I thoroughly enjoy the older Queen novels with cast of characters at the beginning, a few maps to help the reader get their bearings, and the challenge break where the reader is told they have all the information necessary to spot the culprit. I had my suspicions of the villain of the piece, but I can't say that I picked up (or understood) all of the clues Ellery displays at the end. A nicely done bit of sleight-of-hand on the part of Ellery Queen (Dannay & Lee).
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
It isn't long before the woman is identified as the wife of Cyrus French, owner of the store, and French's head of security wastes no time getting hold of the police. Inspector Richard Queen is called to the case and arrives with his son Ellery in tow. The police, including the inspector, tend to focus on the obvious clues, but Ellery's eyes are scanning everything and taking in all the minor details. Books on a desk, a glass-topped table, a setting for a card game, cigarette stubs in an ashtray, the dead woman's lipstick, the display of shoes in a closet and seemingly innocuous phrases in various witnesses' statements all catch his attention and add to the solution.
There are several suspects for the Queens to sift through--employees of the store, Winifred French's first husband, or perhaps even her missing daughter. Motives abound as well--the dead woman had headstrong ways and when she decided to interfere there was little to stop her. Perhaps she interfered just one too many times or perhaps she set her foot down on toes that had been trodden on more than enough? There are also hints that all is not as it should be at French's and maybe Mrs. French stumbled upon the secrets hidden underneath the oh-so-correct surface of the most proper department store. Leave it Ellery to sort through the clues and see through the lies and half-truths told by the suspects in order to hand his father the culprit on a silver platter (from French's kitchenware department, perhaps?).
An intricately plotted mystery with clues galore. I thoroughly enjoy the older Queen novels with cast of characters at the beginning, a few maps to help the reader get their bearings, and the challenge break where the reader is told they have all the information necessary to spot the culprit. I had my suspicions of the villain of the piece, but I can't say that I picked up (or understood) all of the clues Ellery displays at the end. A nicely done bit of sleight-of-hand on the part of Ellery Queen (Dannay & Lee).
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
August 14, 2023
Shortlisted for the Most Excruciatingly Dull Book of All Time Award.
November 25, 2020
There is furore in French's department store when the body of a woman tumbles out of a window display. The murdered woman turns out to be the wife of the owner of the department store, Cyrus French. The police gets called in and Ellery Queen trots along. He quickly deduces that the murderer must be one of the store employees or someone connected with the French family. When a drug angle is discovered, things become clearer.
This was my second Ellery Queen book and so far, I have not warmed to this series. I find the narrative too verbose and repetitive. The French Powder Mystery had a hard time keeping my interest because it just dragged on and on. The writing is clunky and it felt never-ending. The actual mystery plot may have some merit but it gets buried under a sea of redundant words. The ending was too abrupt. There were also too many characters who all merged into one another for me because little time was given to their development or even to their place in the narrative.
I enjoyed the Hitchcock-style intervention of the authors summarising the mystery and inviting the readers to solve it by themselves before going on to the finale. One of the main reasons I finished reading this book was the dated feel of it. I doubt I would have managed to finish this otherwise boring book if it did not have the old-world charm attached to it. Clues about hats, old-style departmental stores, old-fashioned drug rings, etc. are great fun.
I might try another book at some point but so far Ellery Queen has only disappointed.
This was my second Ellery Queen book and so far, I have not warmed to this series. I find the narrative too verbose and repetitive. The French Powder Mystery had a hard time keeping my interest because it just dragged on and on. The writing is clunky and it felt never-ending. The actual mystery plot may have some merit but it gets buried under a sea of redundant words. The ending was too abrupt. There were also too many characters who all merged into one another for me because little time was given to their development or even to their place in the narrative.
I enjoyed the Hitchcock-style intervention of the authors summarising the mystery and inviting the readers to solve it by themselves before going on to the finale. One of the main reasons I finished reading this book was the dated feel of it. I doubt I would have managed to finish this otherwise boring book if it did not have the old-world charm attached to it. Clues about hats, old-style departmental stores, old-fashioned drug rings, etc. are great fun.
I might try another book at some point but so far Ellery Queen has only disappointed.
July 20, 2020
Ellery Queen tends to draw people into one of two camps, those who love him and those who don't understand what all the fuss is about. Well I have read the first two in this series and I have already visited both camps. The first book 'The Roman Hat Mystery' I rated two stars. It's been a while and I don't recall much of anything about the story except being singularly unimpressed. Hence, a long wait until I tried another Ellery Queen read. So imagine my surprise of being drawn in from the very start and being always more interested in the 'who done it', rather than the 'How many pages are left in this chapter?', that we are often challenged with, when a story starts to bogs down. I'm not going to go into the plot ...cause I don't do that. But, I will say, lots of surprises, a constant stream of clues a good sense of place and time and finally ends with a well thought out logical explanation. ...or simply put ...a good read.
November 6, 2017
First time reading anything by Ellery Queen. It certainly doesn't approach the level of the Golden Age mystery greats, but is cleverly plotted enough. None of the characters ever graduated beyond the level of cardboard cutouts, but it's a plot-centric whodunit with plenty of clues, alibis, timetables and such—an entertaining enough mental puzzle to while away the time on a dull rainy afternoon.
August 4, 2021
Another enjoyable puzzle from EQ. Probably longer than it needed to be. I like the 1920s setting.
June 29, 2021
Thanks to a bout of insomnia, I got through this one much faster than anticipated. This is certainly a longer and more twisty novel than the first book, which made it at turns more interesting and more irritating. I had correctly guessed that the frame was too obvious, and in retrospect, should have realized the importance of the fingerprint powder, but as Ellery was doing his long-winded running down of the case in the last chapter, it all became quite clear whodunit, and why.
I found Ellery to be absolutely insufferable in this book, always with the random literary quotes and the constant scrubbing of his eyeglasses. Considering my love for Peter Wimsey, its not that I don't have a high tolerance for quirky amateur detectives, but Ellery is so smug and secretive (and those irritating ticks!) that he got on my nerves. The last chapter is so incredibly OTT with a tedious rundown of all of the evidence and deductions (only the last quarter of which had not yet been explored in the book), that the actual ending was quite abrupt .
I found Ellery to be absolutely insufferable in this book, always with the random literary quotes and the constant scrubbing of his eyeglasses. Considering my love for Peter Wimsey, its not that I don't have a high tolerance for quirky amateur detectives, but Ellery is so smug and secretive (and those irritating ticks!) that he got on my nerves. The last chapter is so incredibly OTT with a tedious rundown of all of the evidence and deductions (only the last quarter of which had not yet been explored in the book), that the actual ending was quite abrupt .
January 26, 2021
The second book in the series, this one was refreshingly almost free of the dated attitudes and slang that makes some of these books so hard for a modern reader to enjoy. In fact, it was quite a nice mystery. When the second - and younger - wife of the head of a big department store in NYC tumbles out from a Murphy bed being demonstrated in the front window of the store, the reader can be forgiven in expecting the story to go a certain way. Instead, it wends toward a very different conclusion. I especially enjoyed that all of the action takes place in 48 hours - it kept the story moving at an excellent pace.
As usual in this series, all of the clues are given up front so the reader has a real chance to figure out who did it. Unlike some excellent mystery authors, (I'm looking at you, Agatha...), it isn't a case of the reader having to guess between lots of suspects who could have done it, but finding the one who fits all of the clues. Because I've read quite a few of these, the bad guy jumped out at me fairly early on, but I still enjoyed the story. This would be a good one for the new reader to start with, I think.
NB - Interested readers will note that this books says Ellery eventually marries, has a son, and retires with his father to Italy. Apparently the writers forgot about this, as that never happens in any books in the series. So don't read happily along waiting to meet Ellery's love interest.
Also, as a young girl I happened to see the short-lived TV series about these characters. For some reason they've really stuck in my mind, and I think the show did an unusually good job portraying the Inspector, Ellery, and Sergeant Velie.
As usual in this series, all of the clues are given up front so the reader has a real chance to figure out who did it. Unlike some excellent mystery authors, (I'm looking at you, Agatha...), it isn't a case of the reader having to guess between lots of suspects who could have done it, but finding the one who fits all of the clues. Because I've read quite a few of these, the bad guy jumped out at me fairly early on, but I still enjoyed the story. This would be a good one for the new reader to start with, I think.
NB - Interested readers will note that this books says Ellery eventually marries, has a son, and retires with his father to Italy. Apparently the writers forgot about this, as that never happens in any books in the series. So don't read happily along waiting to meet Ellery's love interest.
Also, as a young girl I happened to see the short-lived TV series about these characters. For some reason they've really stuck in my mind, and I think the show did an unusually good job portraying the Inspector, Ellery, and Sergeant Velie.
July 18, 2010
As I read this book I found myself asking several questions:
Why did The French Powder Mystery open not with the crime or the lead-up to the crime but rather with both Queens and a number of police officers complaining about the officiousness and meddlesomeness of the new police commissioner; why were Ellery's "brilliant insights" so mundane; why were Ellery's mundane insights repeated frequently and at length; why were the "regular police" so painfully inadequate at even the most routine aspects of their job; and finally why was Ellery, a complete outsider to the police, allowed such privileged access to crime scenes and witnesses often without any official oversight at all?
By the time I finished this book I had arrived at the following answers:
Why did The French Powder Mystery open not with the crime or the lead-up to the crime but rather with both Queen’s and a number of police officers complaining about the officiousness and meddlesomeness of the new police commissioner?
By situating the police commissioner as at least troublesome and perhaps an actual antagonist to the regular police force it makes it reasonable to the reader (and to the police in the story) that Ellery withholds clues from the police commissioner and from any other member of the police force who might pass on information to the commissioner. In fact Ellery actually removes evidence from one possible crime scene and in another case sends evidence to an analyst with specific instructions not to let the commissioner know about the result of his tests.
Why were Ellery's "brilliant insights" so mundane?
I am torn in my answer to this question. In part, this “mundaneness” may be due to the fact that the authors wanted to have their literary cake and eat it too -- that is, they wanted the case to look difficult enough to justify calling in Inspector Queen and his son as well as the intervention of the police commissioner. The authors also want the clues to be obvious enough, or at least understandable enough, that the reader immediately ides with Ellery rather than with his doubters.
Why were Ellery's mundane insights repeated frequently and at length?
Perhaps the authors thought some members of the audience wouldn’t get them the first time. Perhaps the authors thought that some of the members of the audience were reading the book in a fragmented way and therefore needed to be frequently reminded about what just happened. Perhaps the authors thought (or the authors thought that the audience thought) that that was the way “really educated” people talked--certainly S. S. Van Dine’s Philo Vance also falls prey to the same tendency to speak too long and too repetitively. Perhaps the authors were getting paid by the word or the page. Or perhaps without the repetition it would have been clear that the authors had chosen to write a novel length short story.
Why were the "regular police" so painfully inadequate at even the most routine aspects of their job?
Authorial laziness? Ellery brilliance is established by his ability to outperform those around him. The more inadequate those around him are the more brilliant Ellery will appear to me. One might also suspect that the authors were themselves rather unaware of routine police procedures and may even have depended on other authors (all of whom also tended to show the police as inadequate) for their information as to how the police function. The inability of the police also makes Inspector Queen’s dependence on his son look less like unacceptable.
Why was Ellery, a complete outsider to the police, allowed such privileged access to crime scenes and witnesses often without any official oversight at all?
The only “in universe” explanation I can think of is nepotism. The “our world” answer is that it is the authors response to the problem faced by every writer who has as their detective someone who is not a member of the police force. Some authors, notably Conan Doyle, have their detectives either hired by people who are involved as victims, witnesses or suspects or asked to consult by the police themselves. Others, such as Rex Stout and Dashiell Hammett, had their detectives work, professionally, as private investigators. Every author needs to find a reason to have their detective on the scene of the crime. Ellery Queen, the writers, choose to have Ellery Queen, their detective, given as much access to the crime and witnesses as would a police officer without being limited by the rule of law as to what they can do and say.
The fact that all of these questions arose in my mind while reading this book, as indeed did the answers I have suggested, indicates the weakness of this particular mystery. So far neither the first nor the second Ellery Queen outing have done much to indicate why this particular fictional detective was so popular other than to highlight the nature of the audience they appealed to at the time they were first published.
Why did The French Powder Mystery open not with the crime or the lead-up to the crime but rather with both Queens and a number of police officers complaining about the officiousness and meddlesomeness of the new police commissioner; why were Ellery's "brilliant insights" so mundane; why were Ellery's mundane insights repeated frequently and at length; why were the "regular police" so painfully inadequate at even the most routine aspects of their job; and finally why was Ellery, a complete outsider to the police, allowed such privileged access to crime scenes and witnesses often without any official oversight at all?
By the time I finished this book I had arrived at the following answers:
Why did The French Powder Mystery open not with the crime or the lead-up to the crime but rather with both Queen’s and a number of police officers complaining about the officiousness and meddlesomeness of the new police commissioner?
By situating the police commissioner as at least troublesome and perhaps an actual antagonist to the regular police force it makes it reasonable to the reader (and to the police in the story) that Ellery withholds clues from the police commissioner and from any other member of the police force who might pass on information to the commissioner. In fact Ellery actually removes evidence from one possible crime scene and in another case sends evidence to an analyst with specific instructions not to let the commissioner know about the result of his tests.
Why were Ellery's "brilliant insights" so mundane?
I am torn in my answer to this question. In part, this “mundaneness” may be due to the fact that the authors wanted to have their literary cake and eat it too -- that is, they wanted the case to look difficult enough to justify calling in Inspector Queen and his son as well as the intervention of the police commissioner. The authors also want the clues to be obvious enough, or at least understandable enough, that the reader immediately ides with Ellery rather than with his doubters.
Why were Ellery's mundane insights repeated frequently and at length?
Perhaps the authors thought some members of the audience wouldn’t get them the first time. Perhaps the authors thought that some of the members of the audience were reading the book in a fragmented way and therefore needed to be frequently reminded about what just happened. Perhaps the authors thought (or the authors thought that the audience thought) that that was the way “really educated” people talked--certainly S. S. Van Dine’s Philo Vance also falls prey to the same tendency to speak too long and too repetitively. Perhaps the authors were getting paid by the word or the page. Or perhaps without the repetition it would have been clear that the authors had chosen to write a novel length short story.
Why were the "regular police" so painfully inadequate at even the most routine aspects of their job?
Authorial laziness? Ellery brilliance is established by his ability to outperform those around him. The more inadequate those around him are the more brilliant Ellery will appear to me. One might also suspect that the authors were themselves rather unaware of routine police procedures and may even have depended on other authors (all of whom also tended to show the police as inadequate) for their information as to how the police function. The inability of the police also makes Inspector Queen’s dependence on his son look less like unacceptable.
Why was Ellery, a complete outsider to the police, allowed such privileged access to crime scenes and witnesses often without any official oversight at all?
The only “in universe” explanation I can think of is nepotism. The “our world” answer is that it is the authors response to the problem faced by every writer who has as their detective someone who is not a member of the police force. Some authors, notably Conan Doyle, have their detectives either hired by people who are involved as victims, witnesses or suspects or asked to consult by the police themselves. Others, such as Rex Stout and Dashiell Hammett, had their detectives work, professionally, as private investigators. Every author needs to find a reason to have their detective on the scene of the crime. Ellery Queen, the writers, choose to have Ellery Queen, their detective, given as much access to the crime and witnesses as would a police officer without being limited by the rule of law as to what they can do and say.
The fact that all of these questions arose in my mind while reading this book, as indeed did the answers I have suggested, indicates the weakness of this particular mystery. So far neither the first nor the second Ellery Queen outing have done much to indicate why this particular fictional detective was so popular other than to highlight the nature of the audience they appealed to at the time they were first published.
August 14, 2024
I enjoyed reading, ellery's pompous dialogue is fun to read, and the vibe is nice, but you know, this is the kind of mystery where you learn the culprit and dont go "*ooooooh*" but instead "oh i guess its that person".
Also i find that when the final denouement is happening, most of what ellery says is just repeating stuff he already figured out and communicated to the audience in the book. There is basically only one new inference he makes specially in that scene that he never mentioned before, and thats the last one needed to pin down who the culprit is. But that doesnt feel very interesting to read, cuz again its kinda repetitious. I prefer it when we are communicated the clues themselves but we keep most of the actual logical connections drawn to the denouement, cuz then you have more stuff to keep you on your toes than just who the culprit is
Also i find that when the final denouement is happening, most of what ellery says is just repeating stuff he already figured out and communicated to the audience in the book. There is basically only one new inference he makes specially in that scene that he never mentioned before, and thats the last one needed to pin down who the culprit is. But that doesnt feel very interesting to read, cuz again its kinda repetitious. I prefer it when we are communicated the clues themselves but we keep most of the actual logical connections drawn to the denouement, cuz then you have more stuff to keep you on your toes than just who the culprit is
May 2, 2021
I need to stop with the Ellery Queens. The whole premise of the series (Ellery writes the books about himself, but in third person, and they're being published after the fact out of chronological order) is confusing, and Ellery lectures (usually his dad) way too much about all the clues -- over and over again. The books could be like at least 25% shorter if he didn't go into extensive detailed analysis of every clue at least 3 times.
January 27, 2025
2.5 stars. I felt much the same way about this that I felt about the other Queen I have read, The Greek Coffin Mystery. They are just chapters of facts and statements being spewed at the readers with little in the way of thrills or twists or any sort of action. I’m not someone who necessarily even needs a lot of action to enjoy a book, but this book was so short on characterization, that the story/narrative would need to be the driving force but it just wasn’t very compelling. Maybe I should try a Queen novel from their more acclaimed second phase starting with Ten Days Wonder.
July 4, 2013
The French Powder Mystery was the second of the Ellery Queen mysteries by Manfred Bennington Lee (Manford Lepofsky) and Frederic Dannay (Daniel Nathan). It appeared in 1930.
The book certainly gets off to a stylish start. French’s Department Store in New York has a window exhibition of modernist furniture. Every day at the same time an employee of the store stages a demonstration of the features of this furniture, including in this case a foldaway bed. On this particular day when the employee presses the button to unfold the bed a corpse is revealed. It belongs to the wife of the owner of the store.
As you expect in an Ellery Queen novel there are plenty of suspects and plenty of clues. But which clues are the ones that matter? The murder could have been committed by almost any member of the French household as Mr French has private apartments on the top floor. There are seven keys to this private apartment, and those keys will assume considerable importance. The murder could also have been committed by any one of several employees of the store, including all the members of the board of directors (a meeting of the board took place in Mr French’s private rooms on the morning of the murder).
The murder might also be linked to a drug ring - the murdered woman’s daughter is a drug addict.
Inspector Richard Queen is frankly baffled, but his son Ellery (an enthusiastic amateur sleuth) is not dismayed by this puzzling case.
As with most of the early Ellery Queens this book contains their famous challenge to the reader - towards the end of the book the reader is informed that he now has possession of all the facts necessary to solve the case for himself, and (as was usual in the Ellery Queen mysteries) the plot is so ingenious that the murderer turns out to be the only person who could possibly have committed the crime.
There’s certainly no disputing the authors’ ability to construct a plot that is like a piece of precision machinery, with each part fitting together so as to produce one and only one solution.
Ellery Queen himself is not the most colourful of fictional detectives but he’s likeable enough. The father-and-son crime-solving team, with the father a professional detective who employs all the conventional methods of a good police officer while the son is a gifted amateur who relies more on pure reasoning, is an effective combination.
The French Powder Mystery is unlikely to disappoint fans of the golden age detective story.
The book certainly gets off to a stylish start. French’s Department Store in New York has a window exhibition of modernist furniture. Every day at the same time an employee of the store stages a demonstration of the features of this furniture, including in this case a foldaway bed. On this particular day when the employee presses the button to unfold the bed a corpse is revealed. It belongs to the wife of the owner of the store.
As you expect in an Ellery Queen novel there are plenty of suspects and plenty of clues. But which clues are the ones that matter? The murder could have been committed by almost any member of the French household as Mr French has private apartments on the top floor. There are seven keys to this private apartment, and those keys will assume considerable importance. The murder could also have been committed by any one of several employees of the store, including all the members of the board of directors (a meeting of the board took place in Mr French’s private rooms on the morning of the murder).
The murder might also be linked to a drug ring - the murdered woman’s daughter is a drug addict.
Inspector Richard Queen is frankly baffled, but his son Ellery (an enthusiastic amateur sleuth) is not dismayed by this puzzling case.
As with most of the early Ellery Queens this book contains their famous challenge to the reader - towards the end of the book the reader is informed that he now has possession of all the facts necessary to solve the case for himself, and (as was usual in the Ellery Queen mysteries) the plot is so ingenious that the murderer turns out to be the only person who could possibly have committed the crime.
There’s certainly no disputing the authors’ ability to construct a plot that is like a piece of precision machinery, with each part fitting together so as to produce one and only one solution.
Ellery Queen himself is not the most colourful of fictional detectives but he’s likeable enough. The father-and-son crime-solving team, with the father a professional detective who employs all the conventional methods of a good police officer while the son is a gifted amateur who relies more on pure reasoning, is an effective combination.
The French Powder Mystery is unlikely to disappoint fans of the golden age detective story.
December 16, 2020
While I did like this one better than The Roman Hat Mystery it still isn’t great. Other reviewers have made note of the annoying idiosyncrasies of Ellery and his father, Inspector Queen. Ellery is constantly polishing his pince nez and talking down to people in his arrogant manner. Inspector Queen is constantly fingering his snuff box, pinching his snuff and vacillating between a grumpy old man and a confused old man. These things get tiresome. There were also several things about the murder and the suspects that bothered me. Mrs. French is found dead in the front window of her husband’s department store. They have an apartment in the building, which Ellery decides must be the murder scene because the felt of a bookend was recently replaced and the only explanation was that it had to have had blood on it and the murderer needed to replace it so the murder scene wasn’t detected. So he went wandering around the store to find the felt and the glue, apparently unworried about detection. But, Ellery surmises, that since he was stuck in the store, he had no choice but to stay in the apartment overnight because staying downstairs in the store would be too dangerous due to the night watchmen patrolling the store. Then again, he couldn’t have been too worried about the night watchmen when he went wandering around with a flashlight looking for felt and glue and a side trip to the book section to check out the shelves. Huh? There were other things that were equally ridiculous but I won’t go into further detail. And, as in the first book, women are frail things who need special handling because otherwise they may find. Please.
July 27, 2019
The second Ellery Queen whodunnit. A rather mundane examination of the murder of the wife of a store owner. Over-wordy exposition by Queen, father and son, although the situation, plot, and solution are pretty smart. The writing of the Queens’ dialogue is rather clunky!
The GR blurb:
‘French's department store was famous for the rare merchandise it offered its elite clientele. But no one there could be proud of its latest exclusive window display: the bloodstained corpse of the owner's wife. Ellery Queen and his father would soon discover a viper's nest of fear and hatred.’
The GR blurb:
‘French's department store was famous for the rare merchandise it offered its elite clientele. But no one there could be proud of its latest exclusive window display: the bloodstained corpse of the owner's wife. Ellery Queen and his father would soon discover a viper's nest of fear and hatred.’
February 8, 2020
I'm taking time to read some classic mysteries, focusing on Erle Stanley Gardner, Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen.
This is my first Ellery Queen book and I loved it. I used to watch the TV show starring Jim Hutton and can picture him as I'm reading. It's interesting to note the progress in forensics as these books were written 40 years after Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes' mysteries.
This is my first Ellery Queen book and I loved it. I used to watch the TV show starring Jim Hutton and can picture him as I'm reading. It's interesting to note the progress in forensics as these books were written 40 years after Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes' mysteries.
March 3, 2018
Another fine deduction crime novel, if slightly dated, from the writing team of Ellery Queen. Lots of characters , lots of Red herrings, with a final conclusion that was both logical and 'obvious' had the reader but followed all the available clues.
August 26, 2023
I often like old classics. But this one just didn’t make sense. There was no “why”. The characters were bland.
May 15, 2024
I remember buying this one in the 1990s
and saying wow what a creepy Art Deco cover
and saying wow what a creepy Art Deco cover
August 14, 2021
One of the original detectives, Ellery Queen helps his father, Inspector Queen, in pure deduction. We get to follow along. Such a lovely little story. French's department story is the place of the crime, or maybe more than one unbeknownst to Mr. French.
January 7, 2022
I can scarcely believe people used to read Ellery Queen mysteries for pleasure and not (as now) as historical curiosities--as examples of the bygone "classical" fair-play detective novel, essentially a very long "word problem" in which the clueing is especially scrupulous (even compared with the average English cozy), with every fact needed to deduce the identity of the murderer placed squarely before the reader.
But you've got to really, really love puzzles to take pleasure from novels this unreadable: turgid narration* that inclines to bombast, stilted and unbelievable dialogue (e.g. "Unfortunately, being a misogynist, I have no family, Inspector"!!), and unending streams of information. Reading this novel is W O R K, man! I don't know who ever got the idea these books were for relaxation.
And the mystery at the bottom of it all--concerning a drug ring and its impractical communications system--is about as mundane as you can get. Edmund Wilson's quip about detective fiction ("I finally got to feel that I had to unpack large crates by swallowing the excelsior in order to find at the bottom a few bent and rusty nails") however unfair to the genre as a whole, perfectly describes what it is like to drag oneself through The French Powder Mystery.
The obnoxious Ellery, an independently-wealthy, insufferable man-child given to self-aggrandizing displays of superficial erudition, is to be sure a major liability. Ellery and his gruff father, Inspector Queen, have this Niles Crane/Martin Crane dynamic going on. Except Inspector Queen is not retired, and Ellery is inexplicably permitted by his father to traipse around crime scenes, interrogate witnesses, handle and even conceal evidence, etc., while nobody says boo. As to EQ's ostentatious shows of erudition, these might sound attractive to fans of Lord Peter Wimsey, but while Wimsey's erudition has behind it the force of Sayers' deep learning, EQ's allusions always seem to have been lifted from a reference book; Dannay and Lee (the authors of these books) just don't have the sophistication to make Queen a really plausible representation of a seriously intelligent and highly educated person rather than a self-important and vain poseur. And despite the novels' constantly informing us of Queen's genius, his deductions--in this novel especially--are fairly mundane.
The artificial world depicted in the Queen novels seems like the grown-up world seen through the eyes of a little kid, not only in its implausible depiction of police procedure but more importantly in its poor grasp of how grown-up people talk, think, interact, feel, why they might kill each other, etc. There is quite absent the intuitive understanding of human relationships, the deeply affecting sense of the passing of time and of individual and social change, that makes (say) Christie's best novels satisfying on many levels. Later Queen novels tried to rectify the infantilage of the early works, swinging to the opposite extreme in the kitsch religiosity of novels like And On The Eighth Day and The Finishing Stroke: if the early novels read like a kid's version of grownup detective work, the grandiose later ones read like a kid's idea of "deep" literature.
The only Queen novel I've enjoyed enough to recommend is The Greek Coffin Mystery. It has all the flaws of early Queen--stilted dialogue, turgid narration, lack of human or literary interest, etc.--but at least it presents the reader with a genuinely mystifying crime that is then worked out with real ingenuity.
*Among other literary mishaps, Dannay and Lee almost never permit a character to simply "say" something; when it comes to dialogue, they never met an adverb they didn't like: "said the Inspector judicially"; "interpolated the Inspector exasperatingly"; "said the Inspector tiredly"; "asked the Inspector submissively"; "replied Marchbanks resignedly"; "said the Inspector distinctly"; "said Ellery argumentatively"; etc. etc. Aside from slowing down the already glacial pace of the narrative this glut of adverbs displays the deeper problem of these novels: if the dialogue were sharper and the characterizations more competent, one wouldn't need to be continually told how particular remarks were delivered.
But you've got to really, really love puzzles to take pleasure from novels this unreadable: turgid narration* that inclines to bombast, stilted and unbelievable dialogue (e.g. "Unfortunately, being a misogynist, I have no family, Inspector"!!), and unending streams of information. Reading this novel is W O R K, man! I don't know who ever got the idea these books were for relaxation.
And the mystery at the bottom of it all--concerning a drug ring and its impractical communications system--is about as mundane as you can get. Edmund Wilson's quip about detective fiction ("I finally got to feel that I had to unpack large crates by swallowing the excelsior in order to find at the bottom a few bent and rusty nails") however unfair to the genre as a whole, perfectly describes what it is like to drag oneself through The French Powder Mystery.
The obnoxious Ellery, an independently-wealthy, insufferable man-child given to self-aggrandizing displays of superficial erudition, is to be sure a major liability. Ellery and his gruff father, Inspector Queen, have this Niles Crane/Martin Crane dynamic going on. Except Inspector Queen is not retired, and Ellery is inexplicably permitted by his father to traipse around crime scenes, interrogate witnesses, handle and even conceal evidence, etc., while nobody says boo. As to EQ's ostentatious shows of erudition, these might sound attractive to fans of Lord Peter Wimsey, but while Wimsey's erudition has behind it the force of Sayers' deep learning, EQ's allusions always seem to have been lifted from a reference book; Dannay and Lee (the authors of these books) just don't have the sophistication to make Queen a really plausible representation of a seriously intelligent and highly educated person rather than a self-important and vain poseur. And despite the novels' constantly informing us of Queen's genius, his deductions--in this novel especially--are fairly mundane.
The artificial world depicted in the Queen novels seems like the grown-up world seen through the eyes of a little kid, not only in its implausible depiction of police procedure but more importantly in its poor grasp of how grown-up people talk, think, interact, feel, why they might kill each other, etc. There is quite absent the intuitive understanding of human relationships, the deeply affecting sense of the passing of time and of individual and social change, that makes (say) Christie's best novels satisfying on many levels. Later Queen novels tried to rectify the infantilage of the early works, swinging to the opposite extreme in the kitsch religiosity of novels like And On The Eighth Day and The Finishing Stroke: if the early novels read like a kid's version of grownup detective work, the grandiose later ones read like a kid's idea of "deep" literature.
The only Queen novel I've enjoyed enough to recommend is The Greek Coffin Mystery. It has all the flaws of early Queen--stilted dialogue, turgid narration, lack of human or literary interest, etc.--but at least it presents the reader with a genuinely mystifying crime that is then worked out with real ingenuity.
*Among other literary mishaps, Dannay and Lee almost never permit a character to simply "say" something; when it comes to dialogue, they never met an adverb they didn't like: "said the Inspector judicially"; "interpolated the Inspector exasperatingly"; "said the Inspector tiredly"; "asked the Inspector submissively"; "replied Marchbanks resignedly"; "said the Inspector distinctly"; "said Ellery argumentatively"; etc. etc. Aside from slowing down the already glacial pace of the narrative this glut of adverbs displays the deeper problem of these novels: if the dialogue were sharper and the characterizations more competent, one wouldn't need to be continually told how particular remarks were delivered.
May 25, 2011
So, I sure have been on a classic mystery kick as of late. Re-discovering Agatha Christie has been great, so I decided to try Ellery Queen, whom I have never read. I've heard great things, and because I love classic Old Time Radio detective mystery shows, I heard EQ books follow the same sort of format, just in literary form. All this in mind, I found a copy of "The French Powder Mystery" laying around the house that I forgot I had and was pleased to see it was written in 1930.
The following may or may not contain spoilers.
The "French Powder Mystery" is about a famous New York City department store that finds itself it a scandal when the owner's wife is found dead in a display window, causing a panic. Ellery Queen and his Inspector father are sent to investigate, and they find all sorts of motives: affairs, drugs, and a missing stepdaughter just to name a few. Finally, after a good sweep of the crime scenes and plenty of interviews and alibis, the murderer is called out.
To me this book had lots of pros, but also plenty of cons.
The pros: I liked the "reader challenge" that Ellery presents. Before explaining the crime at the final episode, there is a little intermission where the reader is invited to guess "whodunnit". This is cute, and I enjoyed guessing (even though I was wrong...see cons for more about that). I also liked that it was often like reading a play by play of a crime scene. Great descriptions about settings and fun and unique clues. Oh, and I liked the mini character bios at the beginning, which was convenient to refer back to from time to time. I also liked Ellery's smug personality. But my favourite aspect was that it is so very 1930's and I felt transported back in time. Love that nostalgia!
The cons: Some parts were a little long and drawn out and sometimes not important to the story (such as complaints about the new police commissioner the first chunk of the book)and some parts were a tad confusing. But the main con was who the murderer was. Although I liked that they waited until the very end to name the killer (literally the final 2 words), I was shocked at who the killer was. Although I understand why and how and whatnot, I just thought it was all wrong. There were others who would have made the story much more entertaining if it was them. I felt like the killer was chosen more to "stump" the reader instead of being an appropriate candidate. For this reason I rated this book 3 stars instead of 4 because I seriously consider the ending a big flaw.
In conclusion, I overall enjoyed "The French Powder Mystery" and can't wait to take on another Ellery Queen adventure soon!!
The following may or may not contain spoilers.
The "French Powder Mystery" is about a famous New York City department store that finds itself it a scandal when the owner's wife is found dead in a display window, causing a panic. Ellery Queen and his Inspector father are sent to investigate, and they find all sorts of motives: affairs, drugs, and a missing stepdaughter just to name a few. Finally, after a good sweep of the crime scenes and plenty of interviews and alibis, the murderer is called out.
To me this book had lots of pros, but also plenty of cons.
The pros: I liked the "reader challenge" that Ellery presents. Before explaining the crime at the final episode, there is a little intermission where the reader is invited to guess "whodunnit". This is cute, and I enjoyed guessing (even though I was wrong...see cons for more about that). I also liked that it was often like reading a play by play of a crime scene. Great descriptions about settings and fun and unique clues. Oh, and I liked the mini character bios at the beginning, which was convenient to refer back to from time to time. I also liked Ellery's smug personality. But my favourite aspect was that it is so very 1930's and I felt transported back in time. Love that nostalgia!
The cons: Some parts were a little long and drawn out and sometimes not important to the story (such as complaints about the new police commissioner the first chunk of the book)and some parts were a tad confusing. But the main con was who the murderer was. Although I liked that they waited until the very end to name the killer (literally the final 2 words), I was shocked at who the killer was. Although I understand why and how and whatnot, I just thought it was all wrong. There were others who would have made the story much more entertaining if it was them. I felt like the killer was chosen more to "stump" the reader instead of being an appropriate candidate. For this reason I rated this book 3 stars instead of 4 because I seriously consider the ending a big flaw.
In conclusion, I overall enjoyed "The French Powder Mystery" and can't wait to take on another Ellery Queen adventure soon!!
November 10, 2015
Good plot. The author gives us some key clues late in the story, but to be fair, he gives them all well before the denouement.
Richard Queen comes across as being thick and officious. Throws his weight about. His adoration of his son Ellery, and letting him into official investigations so openly (as if he were a police officer) is unconvincing.
Richard Queen comes across as being thick and officious. Throws his weight about. His adoration of his son Ellery, and letting him into official investigations so openly (as if he were a police officer) is unconvincing.
July 21, 2018
Eine Tote wird im Schaufenster eines Warenhauses gefunden. Inspector Queen findet aus einer Million Indizien den Täter. Ungeheuer aufregend (im Sinne von total öde). Was mag Borges daran gefunden haben?
January 18, 2023
A wonder of deduction!
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