TRICK I—The first thing to vanish is a worthless doorstop. Then in the twinkling of an eye, goes its rich and eldely owner. and, for the grand finale, both reappear—each as dead as the other. TRICK II—From the House of Darkness issues more bafflement. In total darkness and from a distance of twelve feet, four bullets are pumped within an inch of each other into a spectator's back. A feat utterly impossible to perform—yet brazenly and undeniably done. TRICK III—The piece de resistance. This time it's an entire house, a real house, a solid house which Ellery Queen had been in only the day before...vanished from the face of the earth. And in its place, one of the most incredible conundrums ever to face the master crime solver. * The Lamp of God (Detective Story, October 1935 as House of Haunts) * ...The Treasure Hunt (Detective Story, 1935) * ...The Hollow Dragon (Redbook, December 1936) * ...The House of Darkness (The American Magazine, February 1935) * ...The Bleeding Portrait (original title: "The Gramatan Mystery" * Man Bites Dog (Blue Book, June, 1939) * Long Shot (Blue Book, September 1939) * Mind Over Matter (Blue Book, October 1939) * The Trojan Horse (Blue Book, December 1939)
Author
aka Barnaby Ross. "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.
