In 2005, the Mystery Guild published Queen’s Ransom: The Roman Hat Mystery; Calamity Town; Cat of Many Tails (Mystery Guild Lost Classics Omnibus). The Mystery Guild Book Club went on to publish other “Lost Classics” omnibus volumes which I’ll review in the months ahead. But Queen’s Ransom might be the best of them all.
The Roman Hat Mystery was first published in 1929 and became the first Ellery Queen mystery. A body is discovered at the play called Gunplay. The case is investigated by Inspector Richard Queen of the Homicide Squad with the assistance of his brainy son Ellery, a bibliophile and author. Most of the tropes of the future Ellery Queen mysteries are in evidence here: a bizarre crime, cryptic clues, a “Challenge to the Reader, and a shocking solution from Ellery Queen.
Calamity Town (1942) has Ellery Queen visiting Wrightsville getting lodging with the Wright’s – descendants of the town’s founder and members of local royalty. Ellery settles in an abandoned guest house, nicknamed Calamity House after a series of tragic events that have taken place since it was built. Ellery hopes to use this time to work on his next book, but slowly he’s drawn into a series of murders.
Cat of Many Tales (1949) features a serial killer that throws New York City into a panic. Ellery Queen and his father follow the leads and reveal a cunning solution. Are you a fan of Ellery Queen mysteries? Any favorites? GRADE: B+ (for all three)
Not a fan. Tried Cat of Nine Tails a few years back and found the dialogue quite bad. Read a couple of the later Queen novels which were ghosted by Avram Davidson and Theodore Sturgeon and found them better written. Never read any of the very early ones.
Steve, the early Ellery Queen mysteries are…quirky.
Yes, at least the 1966 novelisation of A STUDY IN TERROR (by Paul W. Fairman as “Ellery Queen”), but I suppose it doesn’t really count. Otherwise, no, at least as far as the novels. I think I’ve read a couple of the short stories over the years.
Fred, some of the Ellery Queen short stories are quite clever. As a kid around 12 years old, I read THE EGYPTIAN CROSS MYSTERY and was blown away!
I am an Ellery Queen fan, from his humble beginings as a Philo Vance clone to his far more nuanced later works. As Queen, the detective, matured, he became much more fallible and likable. And there was always the strong element of “fair play.” The three books in this collectionare great examples of the variety and the growth of this series. I am especailly fond of his Wrightsville novels.
Jerry, you join plenty of critics who admire Ellery Queen’s Wrightsville novels.
Queen was the first author of traditional detective novels that i discovered, and I think it was the Challenge To the Reader that hooked me. I’ve read these three and quite a few others, mostly when I was in college in the sixties. These led me to Carr and Christie, both of whom I preferred to Queen, and I was also reading a lot of SF at the time. Then I got hooked on private eye novels and that ended my traditional phase except for Christie, whose work I kept reading until the end.
Michael, I followed your reading path almost exactly. I, too, loved “Challenge to the Reader”! Read some early Ellery Queens, moved on to Agatha Christie, got hooked on private eye novels–Carter Brown, Mike Shayne, etc.–and by the Seventies, I was blending SF, Fantasy, and Mysteries in my reading program.
I am sure i must have because my mother had some. But mostly I remember the series on TV.
Patti, I loved the ELLERY QUEEN TV series, too. But, I suspect it was too cerebral to attract a mass audience.
My opinion is quite similar to K’s, but like you, I prefer Queen’s short stories. I’ve read all the early ones (EGYPTIAN CROSS, CHINESE ORANGE, etc.), the Wrightsville books, the lesser Hollywood books, a couple of non series books, the first three (I think) Barnaby Ross books, plus what may be Dannay’s greatest work, his non-fiction stuff on the genre.
That was supposed to say “similar to Jerry’s” but don’t know what happened there.
Jeff, I share you assessment of Ellery Queen. And of Dannay’s non-fiction on mysteries.
Don’t remember reading any Ellery Queen novels – only sometimes the E Q magazine when I could get it cheap.
I’ve probably told this already:
I grew up on British crime stories – Edgar Wallace, Agatha Christie etc which a friend of the family collected (in German of course) and allowed me to in his house.
And as a student I couldn’t resist Micky Spillane and the good looking ladies on Carter Brown books.
But SF was my lifeline.
“Sausage fingers” is definitely colloquial English, too, Wolf!
I was as likely to read crime fiction as sf from an early age, as what drew me in most readily was horror fiction, but I read everything that came my way…and a lot of cf and sf (and fantasy and westerns and contemporary mimetic fiction, etc.) were written by writers of horror fiction, as well…
Wolf, most of those good looking ladies on the Carter Brown books were painted by Robert McGinnis.
I first became aware of EQ (I don’t think I’d read the stories beforehand) because of the (second and more memorable) tv series, which I enjoyed (it debuted on NBC a month after my 11th birthday in 1975, and even though producers Levinson and Link had scored multiple times for NBC, most obviously with COLUMBO, the network did the series no favors, placing it up against the already-popular THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO on ABC, a then-current day rather than historical crime drama, but nonetheless a crime drama, and the potent if irregularly performing CBS movie package, then moving it for the rest of its run to a slot against two relatively stupid but even more popular series, THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN on ABC and THE SONNY AND CHER SHOW (mocked once on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE as a “tragedy-variety hour” at the time)…it didn’t have a chance to find a larger audience looking for less tepid fare.
I still need to read the Sturgeon novel and enjoyed the Davidson novels in the series, but have only read some short stories from Dannay and Lee. Mostly enjoyed them, as I recall, and have read them almost exclusively in EQMM and the Davis magazine editions of ELLERY QUEEN’S ANTHOLOGY and a few of the hardcover versions from the same series. Should rectify.
The earlier tv series: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051275/
The radio series in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Ellery_Queen_(radio_program)
The feature films, cinematic and tv: https://elleryqueen.us/movies.html
THIS MULTI-LINK COMMENT AWAITING MODERATION CAN SAFELY BE DELETED!
Todd, little moderation on this blog. WORDPRESS sometime just has a hissy-fit!
Any comment with more than one link in it will trigger a hold for moderation. I will let that slip my mind too often.
Todd, I suspect the “security” features of WORDPRESS frown on multiple links.
Todd, I pick up ELLERY QUEEN anthologies when I run across them.
The earlier tv series: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051275/
The radio series in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Ellery_Queen_(radio_program)
The feature films, cinematic and tv: https://elleryqueen.us/movies.html