Book Review: The New Adventures of Ellery Queen by Ellery Queen
Ellery Queen was the shared pen name of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, as well as the main character of the mystery stories they wrote. Starting with The Roman Hat Mystery in 1929, they wrote many novels and short stories about a brainy mystery writer solving crimes (and then writing about them in the third person.)
This collection has the novella “The Lamp of God” and eight shorter stories from the 1935-1939 time period.
“The Lamp of God” has an introduction that makes it sound as though Mr. Queen is going to need divine intervention to solve the case. It’s certainly bizarre, and Ellery does use the title phrase, but in fact it’s a fair play mystery. Ellery Queen is called in by an attorney to greet an heiress and accompany them and a sinister-acting relative of the heiress to the remote Long Island estate of her late father.
There they find two houses, the ramshackle dwelling the father died in, and next to it, the more modern house all the relatives live in. Snow falls overnight, and the next morning when they look outside, the other house has vanished right down to its foundations! But how?
It’s a good thing I had read this one before in the big book of locked-room mysteries I reviewed a while back, as the back cover blurb spoils an important plot point. If your copy has the cover displayed with this review, do not read the back cover!
“The Adventure of the Treasure Hunt”: While attending a weekend party at Major-General Barrett’s house, Ellery learns that the retired officer’s daughter has had her valuable necklace stolen. When an ordinary search turns up nothing, Ellery creates a party game to search for the treasure, catching the thief. An amusing puzzle with no murder.
“The Adventure of the Hollow Dragon”: Mr. Queen investigates the disappearance of a Japanese businessman. This story leans heavily on “Orientalism”, the notion that Asian people and their culture are exotic and even mystical. Ellery falls under this illusion for a while, but is able to use material sciences and paperwork to prove that there’s nothing supernatural or even very weird going on.
“The Adventure of the House of Darkness” has Mr. Queen’s houseboy Djuna (apparently a teenager of some non-Caucasian ethnicity) drag him to a new funfair attraction. The House of Darkness is just what you might think, a maze that thrillseekers must navigate through in complete lack of light. Naturally, while Ellery and Djuna are inside, murder strikes, and the amateur detective must figure out which of the customers inside did it–and how.
There’s a black couple among the customers, who don’t seem stereotyped, but are mostly there for Ellery to make a bad joke about the dark. Not funny, Mr. Queen. The actual solution is of course based on skewed perception.
“The Adventure of the Bleeding Portrait” involves a portrait of a man betrayed in love, who allegedly bleeds from the heart whenever a member of his family was betrayed by their wife. Ooh, look, the portrait is now smeared with blood in just the right spot, and one of the people on the remote island is missing at the same time there are traces of a body being dragged from the house. Murder? Infidelity? Or something else?
The next four stories all come from the “Hollywood period” when the authors decided to change up the setting by having Ellery Queen move to California to do scriptwriting for the movies. In The Four of Hearts Ellery meets gossip columnist Paula Paris (rather obviously inspired by the real-life Hedda Hopper) who became his romantic interest for two novels and these sports-related short stories.
Thanks to shifts in language, we are repeatedly told that Ellery cured Paula’s “homophobia” by “making love to her.” In today’s vocabulary, that translates to him curing her fear of meeting people in person by flirting with Paula.
“Man Bites Dog”: Paula scores tickets to the seventh game of the World Series for Ellery. Unfortunately, a former baseball star is murdered right in front of them, and Ellery must try to solve the case before he misses too much of the action. Guest appearance by Ellery’s father, an Inspector with the New York Police Department.
“Long Shot”: It turns out Ellery Queen is lacking in knowledge of horse racing, so Paula sets him up to learn from a old pro. But a race goes bad when the horse is shot, and Ellery must somehow figure out how it was done.
“Mind Over Matter”: This time it’s a World Championship Heavyweight Boxing match. The fight itself goes well, but then the challenger is found stabbed to death in the parking lot. Oh, and Ellery’s coat is missing. Could these two things be related?
“Trojan Horse”: And finally, it’s college football time. Except that in the excitement, another valuable necklace has been stolen. Can Ellery save the day by recovering the jewel and proving the young football player innocent?
“Lamp” is the best of these, though I also especially like “Treasure Hunt.” Be aware that most of these stories have become dated, but otherwise, please enjoy the fun puzzles!
