Showing results by author "Ellery Queen" in All Categories

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, Inspector Richard Queen, soon discover that this palace of commerce is a viper's nest of fear, jealousy, suspicion, and hatred, where love is cheap and the price of honor marked down. But worst of all is the mysterious mocking mastermind who is out to turn the glittering store into a bargain basement of murder.

In New York City in the early 1930s, a man is poisoned on a crowded streetcar during rush hour. Everyone sees Longstreet die - but no one sees the killer. Inspector Thumm's few clues all lead up a blind alley. He finally seeks the aid of Drury Lane - retired Shakespearean actor, master of disguise, and amateur sleuth. Seated amid the splendor of the vast medieval halls of his castle on the Hudson, Drury Lane hears the story from the inspector.

Despite the dismal Broadway season, Gunplay continues to draw crowds. A gangland spectacle, it's packed to the gills with action, explosions, and gunfire. In fact, Gunplay is so loud that no one notices the killing of Monte Field. In a sold-out theater, Field is found dead partway through the second act, surrounded by empty seats. The police hold the crowd and call for the one man who can untangle this daring murder: Inspector Richard Queen.

Frightfully rich and awesomely respectable, the McKells had never been touched by scandal. At least, not until the handsome Dane McKell discovered his father's secret affair. Determined to protect his mother, he forced a meeting with the other woman.

But Dane didn't count on falling in love with her himself. Nor did he count on the front page murder that engulfed them all. Sheila, exotic young international leader of haute couture, is found murdered in her Park Avenue penthouse.

When Abigail Doorn was wheeled into the operation room at the Dutch Memorial Hospital, her face was strangely blue and bloated. A wire had been tightly wound around her neck. The strongest suspect, because he stood to benefit by the death of this wealthy old woman, was her protégé, the famous Dr. Janney. Just before her death he received a strange caller - one whose name he would not divulge. Ellery Queen, having come to the hospital to visit his old friend Dr. Minchen, had been present during the time of the murder.

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.

At the tail end of the long summer of 1940, there is nowhere in the country more charming than Wrightsville. The Depression has abated, and for the first time in years the city is booming. There is hope in Wrightsville, but Ellery Queen has come looking for death. The mystery author is hoping for fodder for a novel, and he senses the corruption that lurks beneath the apple pie façade. He rents a house owned by the town's first family, whose three daughters star in most of the local gossip.

When a Western star is gunned down at a rodeo, Ellery Queen saddles up to solve the mystery.

Buck Horne has roped thousands of cattle, slugged his way out of dozens of saloons, and shot plenty of men dead in the street - but always on the back lot. He's a celluloid cowboy, and his career is nearly kaput. The real box-office draw is his daughter, Kit, a brawling beauty who can out shoot any rascal the studio has to offer. Desperate for a comeback, Buck joins Wild Bill Grant's traveling rodeo for a show in New York, hoping to land one last movie contract.

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. 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. The case will drag him all over New York as he hunts for the truth.

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…?"

Ellery Queen 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, and a scholarly drunk who disappeared. 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.

Brought to you by Penguin. A unique collection of the finest Golden Age mystiers - puzzling whodunnits that have entertained and delighted readers for centuries. With Edgar Award-winning Otto Penzler as guide, delve into an irresistible collection of the finest Golden Age American whodunits...

Trick I - The first thing to vanish is a worthless doorstop. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, goes its rich and elderly 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 12 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.

In the merry month of May, Ellery Queen made a trek to Gettysburg to witness an annual celebration - and an annual murder. February found the ingenious Ellery locked in a furious battle of wits with a dead US president. These are but two of the 12 appointments with crime that make up Queen's baffling calendar of conundrums. Each elegant enigma ticks off all the surprise and excitement that have made Queen the dean of American detective fiction.

When Hollywood bigwig Solly Spaeth is murdered, thousands cheer. He is a most popular corpse, for Solly's stock manipulations have ruined many, including his partner. A cut-and-dried case - or so it appears. Enter master detective Ellery Queen, whose embarrassing questions uncover a maze of conflicting alibis and motives, and ultimately reveal a deadly face lurking beneath the glittering mask of Tinseltown.

Some bizarre thingshave been happening to the eccentric Hatter family. First, the body of York Hatter is recovered from the ocean. But he didn't drown. He died of poison. Next, another poisoning occurs in the Hatters' old mansion in New York's Greenwich Village. This time the police have a witness. But what a witness! She is a blind, deaf mute. Naturally the authorities call in Drury Lane - retired Shakespearean actor, matinee idol, master of disguise, and amateur sleuth.

This rare volume is a collection of some of Queen's best, containing three novelettes and two short stories. The stories include "The Death of Don Juan", "The Wrightsville Heirs", "The Case Against Carroll", "E = Murder", and "Diamonds in Paradise". Ellery Queen stars in all of them, making this collection a must-listen for mystery fans.

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.

Ellery Queen and Sherlock Holmes are the undisputed masters of analytical deduction - their talents and methods strikingly, almost uncannily, alike. Through the strange interlocking of events past and present, the two celebrated detectives meet to focus their razor-sharp intellects - and their brilliant powers of observation - on the mystery of…Jack the Ripper.

Having escaped New York with the hopes of finishing his latest mystery novel in peace in Los Angeles, Ellery Queen is shocked when a knock on his door lands him right in the middle of yet another mystery. Leander Hill, a prominent Hollywood jeweler, recently died of a heart attack after receiving a package containing a dead dog, a sight that literally frightened him to death. Hill's daughter is convinced the act was premeditated murder and enlists Queen's help to catch the killer