A fine silk custom top-hat is missing from a crooked lawyer who was poisoned by lead alcohol in the Roman theater at the close of the second act, 9:55 pm. Inspector Richard Q, sneezing snuff; a thin, multi-faced, small "Old Man"; and the Inspector's large writer son Ellery, puffing cigarettes, investigate. They start with maps of theater, the victim's bedroom, and a list of names appended with flavorful commentary: the finder of the body is "cranially a brachycephalic", and Dolly "a lady of reputation". The flavor of 1929 costume and culture, with evening attire de rigeur, and hip flasks full of bootleg liquor.

Book by Queen, Ellery

When Ellery Queen, described by the London Times as “the logical successor to Sherlock Holmes,” is invited by his friend, a doctor, to witness an operation, he accepts the offer in hopes of furthering his capabilities as an amateur detective, but soon ends up testing those same skills. The patient who is about to undergo the delicate procedure is Abigail Doorn, the richest and most famous woman in America; the doctor who will perform it is her protégé, one of the leading surgeons on the East Coast. It will all take place in the main operating theater of the vast hospital that she founded. Relatives and friends, and even some enemies, wait with bated breath to learn the outcome of the operation. The institution is hushed, the audience seated, the theater ready. The surgeon calls for his distinguished patient, and the doors swing open. A still form covered in a white sheet is wheeled into the theater. But when the sheet is removed, it reveals Ms. Doorn’s corpse, strangled to death with a picture wire. Who among the attendees was ruthless enough to carry out this gruesome operation? It’s up to Ellery Queen—and his most perceptive readers—to uncover the clues and find out.

From the very beginning, the Khalkis case struck a somber note. It began, as was peculiarly harmonious in the light of what was to come, with the death of an old man. Georg Khalkis, internationally famous art dealer and collector, died of heart failure. After his funeral, his attorney found that the will was missing and immediately called in the district attorney. When Inspector Queen and his son, Ellery, are brought in to solve the mystery of the missing will, Ellery mentions the one place they have not searched for the will . . . the coffin! Upon exhumation of the Khalkis coffin they find that it contained not one body—but two!

A new series of classic facsimile reprints selected and introduced by the internationally renowned editor and mystery expert Otto Penzler. - The Egyptian Cross Mystery has justly been called Ellery Queens weirdest adventure. On Christmas Eve, an eccentric schoolmaster in the little town of Arroyo, West Virginia was brutally murdered. Over the next year, three other men were found with their heads cut off, crucified likewise in the form of a T. Ellery Queen had the feeling that there was only one clue he didnt possess and that clue came to him with the fourth murder.

In the arena of a vast New York sports palace, a man lay dead, murdered during the opening scene of a spectacular rodeo. Can you, as Ellery Queen does, follow these clues to the murderer? — A dead man's belt. What was the meaning of the deep ridges in the leather? — An ivory handled revolver. How could the “feel” of the gun-butt provide a clue? — The broken locks on a green box. Did the way the locks had been bent point the way to murder? These are the big points in one of the toughest mysteries ever tackled by Ellery Queen. It was a murder witnessed by 20,000 people, but only Ellery solved it. Do you think you can, too?

1993, mass market paperback reprint edition (of a work first published in 1933), Otto Penzler Books, NY. 325 pages. A group of travelers is stranded on a mountain top. Close by is a forest fire, getting closer. A killer is nearby too. A Golden Age mystery novel, a definite classic.

A puzzling publishing murder attracts the eye of Ellery Queen. Mandarin Press is a premier publishing house for foreign literature, but to those at the top of this enterprise, there is little more beautiful than a rare stamp. As Donald Kirk, publisher and philatelist, prepares his office for a banquet, an unfamiliar man comes to call. No one recognizes him, but Kirk's staff is used to strange characters visiting their boss, so Kirk's secretary asks him to wait in the anteroom. Within an hour the mysterious visitor is dead on the floor, head bashed in with a fireplace poker, and everything in the anteroom has been quite literally turned upside down. The rug is backwards; the furniture is backwards; even the dead man's clothes have been put on front-to-back. As debonair detective Ellery Queen pries into the secrets of Mandarin Press, every clue he finds is topsy-turvy. The great sleuth must tread lightly, for walking backwards is a surefire way to step off a cliff.

THE SPANISH CAPE MYSTERY is a study in jealousy, revenge and mistaken identity. The setting is a brooding headland called the Spanish Cape. The cast contains the monstrous Captain Kidd, the ill-fated David Cumer and his beautiful niece Rosa, and Rosa's suitors. Into this scene drives Ellery Queen, intent on a holiday. Instead he must solve a baffling kidnap-murder!

Coleção XIS, n.º 52, de 1955 Ellery Queen é convidada por um amigo advogado para ajudar a proteger os interesses de uma herdeira muito jovem. Eles conhecem-na, juntamente com um desagradável médico amigo da sua família, quando ela desembarca em Nova York de um transatlântico que chega da Inglaterra. Ela descobre que o seu pai, de quem está separada desde criança, morreu quando ela estava para se reunir com a sua família excêntrica e herdar o lendário tesouro de ouro de seu pai. O grupo conduz durante horas para chegar, ao anoitecer, a uma casa vitoriana feia e sinistra chamada Casa Negra. A Casa Negra, onde o seu pai morreu, é inabitável - o grupo encontra a família e deita-se numa pequena casa de pedra ao lado. Quando eles acordam, a Casa Negra desapareceu como se nunca tivesse existido. Ellery deve livrar-se das armadilhas góticas e das sugestões de magia negra para descobrir o que aconteceu com a Casa Negra e o ouro.

O homem conhecido como Joseph Kent Gimball era uma figura de proa da fulgurante alta-roda nova-iorquina que se passeava pelas ruas de Manhattan na companhia da sua elegante mulher. O homem conhecido como Joe Wilson poderia muito bem ser apresentado como o epítome da classe média americana, com a sua casa, esposa, cão e relvado para cortar ao fim de semana num modesto subúrbio de Filadélfia. Tudo indicaria que Gimball e Wilson nunca se viriam a cruzar - não fora o caso de os dois habitarem o mesmo corpo. E um corpo que acabaria por ser encontrado cadáver numa Casa de Recuperação a meio caminho entre as suas duas vidas. Escrito em 1936, O Mistério dos Fósforos Queimados é uma das mais fascinantes obras de Ellery Queen, assente numa lógica dedutiva espantosamente conduzida, uma história de investigação em que para descobrir o assassino a primeira questão que o escritor-detetive terá de solucionar é quem foi o assassinado.

Ellery Queen, the gentleman detective, is a handsome Harvard grad who works as a private eye alongside his father, Inspector Richard Queen of the NYPD. In The Door Between they face one of their most daunting cases. Karen Leith is dead. An acclaimed novelist turned recluse, she died alone, in a small secluded room of her odd Greenwich Village house. Reportedly tormented by a scandal from decades past, she killed herself. Or did she? The deeper Ellery Queen delves into her past, the more certain he becomes that she was murdered — in as clever and horrifying a manner as he has ever encountered. Queen's superb powers of deduction are put to the ultimate test in this intricate whodunit.

When Solly Spaeth was murdered, thousands cheered. He was a most popular corpse. Solly's stock manipulations had ruined many, including his partner. Even before Ellery Queen entered the case, there were too many suspects. The case was almost too easy for the police—until Ellery began asking embarrassing questions. But in finding the answers to those questions, Queen found the murderer.

1994, trade paperback edition (of a title first published in 1938), Harper Perennial, NY. 250 pages. Ellery Queen was a pen name for two cousins who, in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, along with Rex Stout, led the way re. American mystery writers. Most of the biggest names in the field were British, but Queen was one of the ones who turned things around. Our man Ellery has been hired as a writer out West on a major motion picture shoot. Something is about to happen to our two very visible super stars.

Eccentric multimillionaire Cadmus Cole hires Ellery Queen to investigate a case but won't say what it is. When Cole dies mysteriously at sea, Queen and his partner, Beau Rummell, must navigate a thicket of complications that includes a $50 million legacy, two beautiful, avaricious women vying for it, and even a phony Ellery Queen. This confection, now available in audio form, was first published in 1939.

Ellery Queen matches wits with a ruthless poisoner who implicates Queen as the prime suspect. "Should make every detective story reader an Ellery Queen fan".—Boston Globe.

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.

For the twelve years following the death of Davy's mother Jessica, and the trial of his father, Davy Fox has suffered inner torture. Davy knew he loved his wife...as well as he knew he was going to kill her. He didn't know just when it was going to happen—but when a man is born to be a murderer, it's only a matter of time before he claims his birthright. Love turns out to be a matter of life or death—and it's up to Ellery Queen to make the choice!

Ellery is persuaded to accompany an old friend to his ancestral home when the latter arrives at Ellery's house covered in blood and unable to remember anything from the past few weeks. There, tensions erupt and foul play results in the murder of one of the household's members. Originally published by Little, Brown in 1948.

Ellery Queen mystery set in New York City

Ellery returned to Wrightsville to solve the mystery of: A rich man (believed poor) who died of "old age." A poor man (believed rich) who committed suicide. A scholarly drunk who disappeared. And shortly it occurred to Queen that the puzzle had a pattern. A twisted mind was committing murder according to an old nursery rhyme! Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief...and to at least one person in town, the chief was Ellery Queen!

Knowing a package containing a dead dog would literally frighten its intended victim to death, a cunning enemy delivers this perfect murder weapon to Leander Hill, a prominent Hollywood jeweler. When Hill's daughter enlists the support of Queen, he must harness all of his skills to prevail over this unscrupulous mind.

Ellery Queen and his father discover a baffling murder on a private island Ellery Queen and his father are meandering through breakfast when their apartment is invaded. Without making a sound, 2 men appear in the Queens’ living room, guns drawn, and proceed to search the place. When they’re done, a 3rd man a paunchy little professor-type who happens to be the brother of a king. King Bendigo doesn’t rule a country, but his control of the international arms trade has made him one of the richest men in the world. It’s not surprising that somebody wants him dead. Bendigo’s brother comes to the Queens to ask them to save the tycoon’s life—but they fail. The king is found dead in a hermetically sealed room, a bullet lodged in his heart. The murder is impossible to solve—that is, for anyone but Ellery Queen.

Ellery had a simple case. A few days of discreet snooping, some choice advice, and the inimitable sleuth would blithely restore domestic harmony to the millionaire couple Dirk and Martha Lawrence. And then came the scarlet letters. And finally the cryptic clue...scrawled in a murdered man's blood. A simple case? Unless Ellery did some super-fast sleuthing, he'd have nothing to show but a very scarlet face.

Aka November Song For years, Inspector Richard Queen had been outshone by his writer son. Now, with Ellery away, he had a case all his own—or did he? The verdict had been accidental death, and only the victim's nurse had seen the one thing that made it murder. Recruiting a Senior Citizens corps of retired cops, Dick Queen tracked a murderer—and found himself courting his only witness! No wonder he kept muttering, "What's Ellery going to say...?"

During the eleven nights before Christmas, the strange gifts and the warnings came. Ellery Queen was there. The police were there. But no one saw the messenger. Ellery Queen knew that the sinister gifts held the clue to the mystery. But what did they mean, and who was the intended victim? Then on the twelfth night of Christmas, the last clue led straight to the corpse...

A card with the letter "J" on it appeared in Robert York's mail, and a day later he was dead. Then another card showed up, and Ellery Queen knew he was up against a brilliant killer who made a game of death by warning his victims. The only clue was the signature "Y" and Ellery had to find him and stop his remorseless vendetta before "Y" won his mad game...

It's April 1944 and Ellery Queen has been working for the military making films in Hollywood. Driving through Death Valley on his way home, his car breaks down. Stumbling over a rise in the desert, he encounters an odd man who seems to come from an earlier time, and is welcomed into his community as a sort of prophet. Queen must root out a growing corruption while operating within the limits of an alien world and comes to the realization that evil can invade the most guarded of people's hearts and societies.

Sheila, young international leader of haute couture, is found murdered in her Park Avenue penthouse. Two floors down, the distinguished middle-aged millionaire-Ashton McKell-is hauled off to jail. Next to go, Lutecia, his shy patrician wife. And then-Dane, their handsome, sensitive son. Together, a triangle of murder suspects. Ellery, immobilized, can trick the police into becoming his "legmen" if he discovers The Fourth Side of the Triangle.

Based on the Sherlock Holmes Ellery Queen matches wits with the Baker Street sleuth to unmask Jack the Ripper. Ellery Queen is struggling over his latest book when a friend brings him a mystery. It is a journal, written by a Victorian doctor, of reports on the remarkable adventures of his close friend, a brilliant detective named Sherlock Holmes. Queen’s surprise turns to amazement as he turns its pages and discovers the lost story of Sherlock Holmes’s greatest the pursuit of Jack the Ripper. From the brothels and back alleys of fog-choked Whitechapel to the manor of one of England’s greatest families, Holmes and Dr. Watson chase history’s most fearsome killer. But it will take the brilliance of Ellery Queen to solve the case once and for all. Based on the Sherlock Holmes film A Study in Terror, this collaboration between two of the world’s greatest detectives is one of the most original mystery novels of all time.

The only clue to the murder of Gloria Guild, the singing Glory of the Thirties, is her dying scrawl of the word face. Why face? Whose face? Ellery Queen pursues the Glory riddle from the Bowery to a way-out wedding—and a surprise climax that will jolt you into cold shock. Any reader who nails this killer is a genius or a cheat.

Newlyweds Richard Queen and his wife are invited to a dead man’s treasure hunt in a mystery that’s “incredibly intricate; in other words Queentessential” (Kirkus Reviews). Ellery Queen is vacationing in Istanbul when he learns that his aging father, the retired police inspector Richard Queen, is getting married. The world-famous sleuth rushes home to congratulate the happy couple and enjoy the unique experience of giving his father away to the bride. The honeymoon over, Richard and his new wife return home to find an envelope containing a $100 bill and half of a $1,000 bill—a down payment for one of the most puzzling cases the Queen men will ever encounter. Accompanying the money is a letter summoning Inspector Queen and his spouse to a peculiar vacation in the wilds of New York. Also invited are a con man, a country doctor, a charitable spinster, and a few other disreputable characters who have been assembled for a weekend of murder and mystery they will never forget.

John Lovering Benedict had more than most men, most of all more women—including 3 ex-wives with little in common but their extraordinary physiques. For Ellery the question was which one of them had bashed in Benedict's skull with a hunk of iron statuary? The clues were many, but puzzling. All had been planted at the scene of the crime, but by whom, and for what purpose? And who was the last woman in John Benedict's life?

An ordinary day in Gloucestershire holds a half century of secrets and lies in this crafty and well-crafted mystery, when a skeleton turns up in a field outside the old village of Tolland. A dogtag beside it in the earth bears the name Ben Gordheimer, a young American soldier who disappeared—and was dishonorably discharged for desertion—during the war fifty years before. To complicate matters for the police team of Keith Tyrell, the adept and ambitious Detective Inspector sent to Tolland, the investigation into the G.I.'s death unearths a second, much more recent corpse whose identity and identification as a blackmailer sets the entire village even more on edge. While Tyrell discovers the killer, long dead, of the G.I. quickly enough, the village of Tolland itself proves to be a harder case to crack. The repercussions of the old murder continue to haunt the memories and disturb the souls of Tolland's inhabitants, while the fact that another killer is dwelling in their midst troubles the placidity of their closely knit daily lives. Their distrust of Tyrell's inquiry and of the avid press only reinforces their tight-lipped secrecy. Tyrell has problems of his own as well, with the envy and betrayals of internal politics among the members of his police team increasingly impeding the progress of the investigation. Neither the village nor Tyrell realizes, though, just how quickly time is running out for them in this case. Then a third dead body further rouses once-sleepy Tolland and confronts the beleaguered Tyrell with another nasty case of murder.

Eleven confounding problems in deduction for Golden Age super-sleuth Ellery Queen. For Ellery Queen, there is no puzzle that reason cannot solve. In his time, he has faced down killers, thugs, and thieves, protected only by the might of his brain―and the odd bit of timely intervention by his father, a burly New York police inspector. But when a university professor asks Queen to teach a class, the detective finds there are people whom reason cannot touch: college students. Queen’s adventure on campus is only the first of this incomparable collection of short mysteries. In the tales that follow, he tangles with a violent book thief, an assassin of acrobats, and New York’s only cleanly shaven bearded lady. And the only thing more dazzling than the mysterious murders he confronts are his brilliant solutions at the end.