The Adventures of Ellery Queen

By Ellery Queen

In eleven ripping stories, the mystery genre's greatest sleuth shows his chops.

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 these pages, he tangles with a violent book thief, an assassin who targets acrobats, and New York's only cleanly shaven bearded lady. Criminals everywhere fear him, whether they work in mansions or back alleys. No mystery is too difficult for the man with the golden brain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781784087999

Ellery Queen

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 uses his spare time to assist his police inspector uncle 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.

Reviews for The Adventures of Ellery Queen

[jeffreymarks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The short stories continue the sheer genius of these authors.

[gttexas · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I had forgotten how enjoyable the old Ellery Queen stories were. If you like mysteries, this is a great read!

[antiquary_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

These are stories I was very fond of when young and still like, though on rereading the first stories (in which Queen is teaching an applied criminology class to 2 men and a woman0 I realize that he used very heavy handed stereotypes to describe the young woman. He also criticizes all of them for relying on just one clue each to solve the case, when in fact he does the same. Still, I wish he had continued the stories about the class.The hanging acrobat is more subtle but powerfully grim. The one penny black is one of the many variants on Conan Doyle's "Six Napoleons" --theft of a series of apparently valueless objects., in this case copies of a widely sold book.

[devenish_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Eleven short stories,most of which are well worth reading.Queen (the detective) is a somewhat Sherlock Holmes type of investigator.Many of the problems are of the academic sort and I particularly liked 'The Two-Headed Dog' and 'The mad Tea-Party.

[orangejulia · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really like mysteries from the 30s and 40s, and Ellery Queen books are classics. The slightly effete bookish Ellery Queen, his tough dad, and improbably solved murder mysteries are tons of fun.