Murder in the Maze

"Our readers are children! Millions of bloodthirsty little kids, and we give them what they want!"

"The Adventure of the Comic Book Crusader"

Note to self: when planning posts in advance, make sure not to skip a week by accident, resulting in me having to write a post hastily because apparently, I didn't have a post scheduled for this week until I noticed last minute.

I have read a lot of mystery comics from Japan. I am of course reading series that are still running like Detective Conan and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, but also read a lot of shorter, older series, especially after the release of the fantastic Honkaku Mystery Manga Zemi ("Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar", 2018), which provides an overview of the many, many mystery comics that have been published in Japan. In particular, this book focused on honkaku mystery comics, so puzzle-plot focused stories and as you peruse this book, you'll learn that this genre has a long history in Japan, and have been extremely succesful starting in the nineties. On the other hand, I have always wondered about such comics outside Japan. I know of a few of them, of course, like the Mickey Mouse comics, or Inspecteur Netjes, and while I know there have been comic versions of Ellery Queen and other characters, I was more interested in original characters. One of the names you'll likely to come across sooner or later when looking for puzzle plot-focused American comics is The Maze Agency, created by Mike W. Barr, with various artists working on various series (runs). Originally published privately by Barr (with art by Alan Davis), the series was professionally published starting 1988 and has since seen also seen two follow-up series in the nineties and the early 2000s. The Maze Agency will even see even a completely new series later this year, as the fourth series will start late 2023. So it's a series that's been around for a while, even if it runs very irregularly.

The series is about Gabriel Webb, a a young true crime writer who would rather write puzzle plot mysteries. As of late, he has been trying to woe Jennifer Mays, a former CIA agent who now runs the succesful private detective burea the Maze Agency (Mays... Maze...). While the determined, headfast Jennifer runs a very efficient detective bureau herself, she occassionally does take Gabriel along for non-conventional jobs, because as it turns out, while Gabriel is a bit scatter-minded and clumsy, his free mind is precisely the type of brain needed for the more baffling cases Jennifer sometimes handles, like a supercar disappearing within seconds, a psychic being targeted by an unknown assailant or an art thief who steals the frames, but leaves the paintings!

The series was strongly inspired by Ellery Queen, and in fact, in essence, The Maze Agency is built up as a fair-play mystery, with proper clewing, and while there's not always an informal Challenge to the Reader, the fact each issue is about 30 pages long means that you know that around page 25 you should have all the necessary clues to, in theory, solve the crime. I say in principle, for there are plenty of issues where the clewing is so clumsily done to "surprise" the reader or the art doesn't really convey a clue well enough, so they end up feeling not as fair as the story pretends it to be. That said, having read about ten issues now, it is a fairly entertaining series, if not to see how Jennifer and Gabriel's relation very slowly evolves while they are solving all these crimes. The crimes themselves are often quite alluring, and the story-telling is dynamic, with twists and turns.

The first few issues follow a very familiar formula, with the initial crime, Jennifer and Gabriel investigating the crime, "some kind of dangerous scene" happening to create some suspense (like the murderer trying to attack Jennifer and Gabriel for nosing around too much), an occasional second murder and then the denouement, where Gabriel and Jennifer explain how the crime was done and where they point out the clues the reader should've picked up. Later issues move a little bit away from this, but as each issue is about the same in length and always last for only that one 30-page issue, the story beats usually don't change too much per story, even if the stories themselves can be varied. The second issue Murder - the Lost Episodes for example involves an interesting plot regarding a legendary television show, and while I think the last reveal of the murderer could've felt so much more satisfying if there had been more clues, I think the part preceding that was a fun idea. Issue 4, The Return of Jack the Ripper, is about members of a Jack the Ripper society being killed one by one. One clue pointing to the killer is quite nicely thought off, and mixed well with the Ripper theme. Issue 6, Double Edge, involves a locked room murder occuring during Gabriel's birthday party at a club. While the trick is a bit silly and unlikely to work, it is the kind of trick that makes you realize writer Barr does really like classic mystery fiction, as this is the kind of trick you could imagine to see in a classic locked room murder mystery. Issue 7, Hearts of Glass, where Jennifer meets an old friend who worked at the CIA, but who is killed in a locked room, similarly has a trick that is just a bit silly, but just imaginative enough to work for me.

A highlight is issue 9, where Gabriel and Jennifer team up with none other than... Ellery Queen! Written to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Ellery Queen, The English Channeler Mystery starts with an attempt on the life of a medium who channels the spirit Noraga has been made by poisoning her water, so Jennifer is hired to investigate the case, as well as Ellery. who via his father and Sergeant Velie also learns the details of the case. They are not capable of stopping an actual murder from happening, but they can work together to solve this murder. While the plotting is certainly not top-level, the type of reasoning seen in this story is particularly close to the Queen style of eliminating suspects, and it really fits this Queen crossover. And yes, this time, there is a Challenge to the Reader!

Overall, I do feel these first ten or so issues of The Maze Agency often feel just too short to really work out the clewing that these plots, in theory, provide. A lot of the gripes I have with these stories could easily have been solved just by allowing for more pages to tell the story more slowly and plant more clues and they end up feel a bit rushed in the thirty page limit. Artwork also differs sometimes per issue, and the placing of visual clues is perhaps therefore not always really strong. For example, clues like "look at how high this is" aren't really conveyed well via establishing shots or shots that clearly show certain characters' heights in comparison etc. Partially a problem of the artist, partially a matter of the writer needing to clearly point out that something is a visual clue.

But reading an issue of The Maze Agency once in a while is pretty fun, and I am interested to see how this new series will turn out, especially as surely series like Detective Conan being available in official English translation for decades now must have had some influence on how to do a fair-play mystery comic, right? I'll probably read more of this series in the future too, and if there's a really great issue I'll be sure to discuss them again.

Trouble in Triplicate

"The thief," said G., is the Minister D--, who dares all things, those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method of the theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in question --a letter, to be frank --had been received by the personage robbed while alone in the royal boudoir.

"The Purloined Letter"

In case you haven't seen it yet: the Ellery Queen television series is really good!

The Karazawa family is an upper-class family in the provincial town of Hagi in the Yamaguchi Prefecture, consisting of father Mitsumasa (a local banker), his wife Sumie and their three beautiful daughters Reiko, Noriko and Keiko. One day, they are visited by a distant relative: Robert "Bob" Fujikura is the grandson of Mitsumasa's older sister living in the United States. Bob is travelling across Japan to further his studies in Asian History. Bob is welcomed into the family, and is offered to stay in the furnished home originally built for Noriko and her to-be husband Toshiyuki. Noriko had been engaged with this bank employee of Mitsumasa, but he suddenly went away three years ago, leaving Noriko an emotional wreck. Soon after Bob's arrival, Toshiyuki re-appears again in town, and while the rest of the family is naturally quite angry with Toshiyuki, Noriko is thrilled to have him back in her life again. The two swiftly decide they still love each other and that they should marry at once. After a honeymoon in Europe, the two move into the house originally built for them (Bob is offered a room in the main house). One day however, Noriko comes across three undelivered letters written by Toshiyuki, hidden away inside a book, and the contents greatly startle her. When Keiko and Bob take a look too, they realize the letters seem to hint at some plot by Toshiyuki to murder his wife. The two can hardly believe it, but they decide to keep an eye all the same, but despite their precautions, the cousins are unable to prevent a deadly poisoning during a party in the 1979 film Haitatsu Sarenai Santsuu no Tegami ("The Three Undelivered Letters").

And if this summary sounds familiar despite the names, you have probably read Ellery Queen's novel Calamity Town, as this movie is indeed an official film adaptation of the Queen novel, directed by Nomura Yoshitarou, who did many mystery novel-to-film adaptations back then (I myself have only seen his Suna no Utsuwa and the 1977 film adaptation of Yatsu Haka Mura). Like I mentioned in my review of the novel, Calamity Town is considered to rank among the best Queen has written in some circles, though personally, I disagree greatly. As a mystery story, I think it's far too limited, simple and unimaginative compared to the other (earlier) output of Queen and while it does a good job at presenting the fictional locale of Wrightsville as a true living town, that's hardly enough to make it an interesting tale of detection. But I did note in the same review that "there is a Japanese film based on this book (...) which is supposedly quite good, though I haven't seen it yet. Considering that Nomura has done a ton of mystery films emphasizing human drama with a larger society backdrop (a lot of Matsumoto Seichou film adaptations for example), the choice for Calamity Town is an understandable one though."

Ultimately, I'd say Haitatsu Sarenai Santsuu no Tegami is a very competent, and faithful adaptation of the source material. Sure, there's the major change in background setting, with the whole story being set in the provincial town of Hagi and the writer Ellery being replaced by Bob who speaks ridiculously accented Japanese, but the core mystery plot is left completely intact. I'd say the truly major difference between the original novel and this film is that the film shows very little of the town and its people: while not surprising, the movie decides to focus completely on the core Karazawa family and its members to emphasize the human drama there, rather than spending the film's limited runtime to showing how the people around them react. This is also the difference between the characters of Ellery, who came as an outsider to the Wright family, and Bob, who may be an outsider, but is (mostly) treated as a family member. Noriko is at the center of the drama, who starts out as emotionally dead, becomes thrilled and alive again when Toshiyuki returns, but turns terrified once she's found the letters, and her ever-changing state of mind also has its effect on Keiko and Bob, who work together in secret to help Noriko.

I said most of what I wanted to say about the core plot in my review of the book, so I'd recommend you to take a look there, but I do have to say the film can be very slow due to the source material. I mean, the movie is just over two hours long, but I believe it takes around ninety minutes before the deadly incident occurs. So a lot of time is spent on characterization and fleshing out the human drama and setting up the incident. Sure, a detective story does need set-up and foreshadowing and things like that, but if you want a mystery film that focuses on a detective plot, this is not the place for you. In that respect, Haitatsu Sarenai Santsuu no Tegami is really a lot like the original novel. Many praise the novel for its characterization, especially in comparison to Queen's earlier output, but personally, I find the scale of the core mystery plot too small, and that's something you also notice in this movie. In the novel, it took Ellery months to realize something about the death which seemed very out of character. Fortunately, we don't have series detectives in this movie, and the timeline of the movie is also compressed a lot (it doesn't span months), so things do feel a bit more natural? or less contrived as it seemed so unlikely in the original novel nobody would ever think of that one slip-up they made in such a long time.

Haitatsu Sarenai Santsuu no Tegami is thus a faithful and well-made adaptation of the source material. However personally I was not a fan of the original novel, and obviously, this film didn't change much about my opinion of it. If you're a fan of Calamity Town however, I can definitely recommend this movie, as it's pretty good. I do know there's also a Japanese television drama adaptation of The Tragedy of Y, which may be a lot more interesting than this film

Original Japanese title(s): 『配達されない三通の手紙』

Wonders of the World

Seven Days War 戦うよ

僕たちの場所この手でつかむまで

「Seven Days War」（TM Network）

Seven Days War - We will fight on

Until we will get hold of a place of our own

"Seven Days War" (TM Network)

A re-read today! Well, I had only read a translation of this book quite a few years back, so you could also say that this is the first time I read the original story, I guess.

The deadline for his upcoming book is all what's on Ellery's mind when he's suddenly visited by Howard van Horn, a young talented sculptor he had first met in Europe during the war. Howard has been suffering from extended attacks of amnesia, with him sometimes waking up in the most surprising places, with complete days absent from his memory. Fearing he might've committed a crime during one of these attacks, he hopes Ellery can figure out what's the cause of these attacks, and begs the writer to keep an eye on him. Ellery agrees and finds himself returning to Wrightsville, where Howard lives together with his millionaire father Diedrich van Horn and his stepmother, the young and beautiful Sally. Several curious incidents surrounding the van Horns occur however during Ellery's stay, some of them related to Howard's amnesiac blackouts, but Ellery could've not have foreseen what would connect all of these incidents together in Ellery Queen's Ten Days' Wonder (1948).

It is no secret that I am a great fan of Ellery Queen's work, especially of his early novels (also known as the Nationality novels), which were admirable experiments in deduction. While Queen's early novels might not have featured bombastic impossible crime situations like locked room murders, they did still often feature interesting and alluring crime scenes, often with a somewhat voyeuristic element, like a body found inside a department store, a completely naked body found on the beach or crucified bodies. Queen combined these scenes with a mystery plot not focused on misdirection or enigmatic clues, but rather on presenting a solvable puzzle plot to the reader: the individual puzzle pieces (clues) might've been simple on their own, like indications that the culprit was left-handed, but it was combining all these clues together in surprising ways that made these early Queen novels so satisfying, and also the reason why when put on the spot, I prefer these puzzle plot novels over for example the more magic show-type of mystery novels like those written by Carr.

But Queen did not stick with what some would call thinly disguised riddles. Calamity Town introduced the readers to the fictional New England town of Wrightsville, and it'd mark a shift in writing style in the Queen canon. No longer were we presented with abstract puzzles: the mystery plots were minimalistic compared to Queen's early work, and human characterization and psychology became much more important. We weren't dealing with abstract suspect A, B and C anymore, but fleshed-out characters. We were also introduced to a much more human Ellery, who'd actually became part of the story, instead of just "looking down" at the actors in the tale of mystery in his role of the great detective. The town of Wrightsville became a character on its own, as it already made an impression in its first appearance, but was also fleshed out even more in subsequent stories. Your mileage on these novels might vary though. I know a lot of people appreciate the more human Ellery and the more naturalistic approach of the Wrightsville novels, while I deem them to be among the weakest of Queen's creative output, with mystery plots that are far too minimalistic, lacking the satisfying complexity and the sheer fun of what made the early novels so engaging as puzzle plot mysteries.

Ten Days' Wonder is the third novel set in Wrightsville, but it is in reality a weird attempt at mixing the naturalism of the Wrightsville setting with the more zany ideas seen in earlier Queen novels, like There Was An Old Woman or The Tragedy of Y. The result is an uneven product, but one I did enjoy in a weird manner. The main problem this novel has is that it is basically working towards a punchline (not a trick solution, mind you), but the set-up takes ages. 70% of the novel is set-up and I can imagine some readers might give up midway, because there's just so little happening. Yes, there are a few incidents involving Howard, but the incidents aren't really alluring on their own, and that combined with the human drama makes most of this novel fairly tedious to get through: little happens and the things that happen are not really exciting.

But then the novel throws a screwball at you by revealing a pattern that connects the seemingly random incidents together, and it's utterly nuts. The link that connects all the dots into a focused line is something that would've been surprising in the earlier Queen novels, let alone in the more realistic setting of Wrightsville, but it works for some odd reason. Is it realistic? No, of course not, it's insane and that's what I like about it, because it does work in a mystery novel. I don't read mystery novels for realism, I read them for going beyond realism for a story that entertains. The contrast between the long and tedious set-up of this novel, and the utterly ridiculous truth (in a good way!) revealed by Ellery is what makes Ten Days' Wonder for me. There Was An Old Woman was crazy throughout, but the slow start and then the sudden shift in tone gives Ten Days' Wonder an extra oomph. The question of whether the pattern is also fairly clued is debatable, I think. There is some foreshadowing, but don't expect the careful and precise clewing from the early Queen novels.

As a mystery novel, I find Ten Days' Wonder difficult to describe though. A long time ago, I proposed the term whatthefuck for a type of mystery novel that is not a whodunit, howdunit or whydunit. I guess that Ten Days' Wonder sorta fits the bill: for most of the time, there is no real mystery for the reader themselves to solve, and the plot's mostly moving from one minor incident for Ellery to deal with to another. In a whatthefuck, there is no clear-cut mystery for the reader to focus on, like a body or a theft or anything like that, but it's a story that works towards a conclusion that allows you to look at the prior events from a completely different angle. It's something Yamada Fuutarou also often used in his novels, making those works also a bit difficult to qualify. It's only when you see the whole picture you realize how it works as a mystery novel, but that also means these stories are very hard to explain without spoilers.

Queen also dives into the fallibility of Ellery as a detective in Ten Days' Wonder and the events of this novel are actually of direct influence on Ellery's behaviour in the novel Cat of Many Tails. Of course, Queen already delved into this topic as early as in The Greek Coffin Mystery, but I absolutely love how the theme is explored in this novel, as it builds further on the theme, moving further than before. In a way, we move towards a post-modern look at the detective-character in Ten Day's Wonder and I think it works especially well, as well as brutal on a detective character like Ellery, especially because he started out as a character in the Van Dine school, as a master detective who overlooks the case as an outsider. The same theme is also often explored in Japanese shin honkaku mystery novels actually, especially by Norizuki Rintarou who has always paid a lot of attention to what he collectivelly calls the Late Queen Problems.

Ten Days' Wonder is thus a weird Queen novel. It takes the form of a normal Wrightsville novel for a very long time, with a mundane, minimalistic plot that does little to really hook the reader, but then suddenly shifts gears to become something much more grotesque and shocking. The last 20~30% of this novel are incredibly bizarre and the finale also makes an impression as an post-modern take on the classic mystery story, but because the extremes of this novel are so drastic, I find it difficult to recommend this novel to people without caveats. I think readers can gain so much more from Ten Days' Wonder if they have at least read one of Queen's nationality novels and one of the other Wrightsville novels to make the comparision. I myself think this is one of the more unique Queen novels, but it's definitely not an accessible entry in the series.

Golden Cocktail

危険。混ぜるな。

Do not mix. Hazardous.

Seems like it's been a while since I did a review on a 'proper' Japanese detective novel, instead of a Japanese translation of a Western novel or reviews on (Japanese) games.

Akechi Kogorou tai Kindaichi Kousuke ("Akechi Kogorou VS Kindaichi Kousuke") is a 2002 short story collection by Ashibe Taku, and the second volume in his The Exhibition of Great Detectives series, a showcase of pastiches starring famous detectives from both East and West. Like many pastiches, these stories also feature an element of parody, and they are best enjoyed if by the reader if they do actually know the detective beneath the spotlight. The story which lends its title to this collection for example, Akechi Kogorou tai Kindaichi Kousuke, features arguably the two most influential detectives in Japanese detective fiction: Edogawa Rampo's famous gentleman-detective Akechi Kogorou and Yokomizo Seishi's quintessential Japanese detective Kindaichi Kousuke. And the reader is sure to enjoy this story if they know something about these detectives, because at the core, this is a very Kindaichi-esque story, about two rival pharmacy shops which used to be one single shop (many Kindaichi stories about the troubles that exist between main and branch families). I already discussed the 2013 TV drama adaptation back then, so I refer to that review for more indepth views on the story. It's a good mystery yarn, with a surprising conclusion, and I definitely prefer the stort story to the drama version, which had some questionable direction in terms of characterization. In the end, this story is still not really a "Versus" story though, so the title might be a bit misleading.

French Keibu to Raimei no Shiro ("Inspector French and the Thunderclap Castle") has Freeman Wills Crofts' Inspector French going on a well-deserved holiday with his wife Emily. The couple needs to change trains at the station of Cranerock, but there they run into a little problem. Old man Smithers, butler of the Callaway family, has been waiting for ages for a "famous detective from London with the initial F", and thinks that he has found his man in Inspector French. The Inspector learns the story of Harriet Cathaway, last of the Cathaways and owner of Thunderclap Castle in Cranerock. She has recently become of age, but her legal guardian, Mannering, wants to sell the castle behind her back to settle his debts. Mannering is willing to do anything to accomplish this, which is why Harriet's grandfather had arranged for the "famous detective F" to watch over Harriet after his demise. Inspector French and his wife stay for the night in Thunderclap Castle, but the following morning, the body of Mannering is found in the Cathaway Crypt. What's more baffling is that no footsteps of anybody leaving the crypt were found on the snowfield surrounding the crypt, and the crypt was locked from inside, with the key found inside Mannering's mouth.

To be honest, I was a bit confused when I started with this story. An Inspector French story, with a Gothic feel and an impossible crime? I had expected an alibi deconstruction story, like Mystery on Southampton Water. But there is a perfectly good reason why this story does not feel like an Inspector French story and a lot more like a story featuring a certain different character, though it would spoil a bit of the surprise if I'd tell you now. Suffice to say that not all is what they appear to be. The impossible crime plot is great by the way, as it ties in fantastically with that one plot-point I can't tell you about here. Is it a completely fair story? No, as it requires some information not explicitly made known to the reader until the conclusion, but for readers who know about the characters featured in this story, French Keibu to Raimei no Shiro is nothing less than fun, that is a great pastiche, parody and impossible crime story. Definitely my favorite of the book.

Brown Shinpu no Japonisme ("The Japonisme of Father Brown") is based on a fanzine story by Komori Kentarou, but heavily rewritten by Ashibe. G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown finds himself at the residence of Lord Huntington, recently deceased, as the request of his old friend Flambeau. Under the influence of his wife, Lord Huntington had become a great collector of anything from the Far East, especially Japan, and he had hired Flambeau for his detective services. The lord however was found murdered yesterday inside a locked exhibition room, filled will Japanese collectibles. His body was stuffed inside a nagamochi storage trunk, while the murder weapon, a pistol, was found inside an urn. Suspects include the lord's wife, a socialist journalist, who had just had an interview with the lord and a Japanese businessman who had a big row with the lord. The solution Father Brown poses is absolutely brilliant, but almost cheating. It's a wonderfully Father Brown-esque solution, reminiscent of the famous The Invisible Man, but taken to the extreme. It's a bit hard to swallow, especially in this time and age, but it's not one I would deem utterly impossible, and I think it works quite well here, though I do wish there were more hints to this solution. Brilliant, but so utterly crazy it wouldn't work in something outside a pastiche or parody.

Soshite Orient Kyuukou Kara Dare Mo Inaku Natta ("And Then There Were None On The Orient Express") is a very short epilogue set in an alternative universe to Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, which focuses on the Yuguslavian Police Force, who were given a dead body and a report of Hercule Poirot's solution to the crime after the events in the book. It's a simple story that with a surprise ending gimmick, which was not bad. It's not a mystery story though, it's just offering a different way to look at the ending of Murder on the Orient Express.

Q no Higeki - Mata wa Futari no Kurofukumen no Bouken ("The Tragedy of Q - Or: The Adventure of the Two Men With Black Masks") starts with the discovery of the body of Professor Cotswinkel  in his research room in the Detroit Public Library. A witness (and suspect) says the last time he talked with the professor, the man said he had just seen Ellery Queen. The problem is: which Ellery Queen? Because both Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay were in Detroit to do a lecture as Ellery Queen and Barnaby Ross. This is an original pastiche about the Queen cousins, as opposed to the character, set in the time when Lee and Dannay were posing as both Ellery Queen and Barnaby Ross. The story makes good use of this past of the Queen cousins and the solution to the problem is solved in a typical Queen manner, by logical reasoning. The denouement scene is golden by the way: with both "Ellery Queen" and "Barnaby Ross" deducing their way to the murderer in front of an audience. 

Tantei Eiga no Yoru ("Night of the Detective Films") is not a pastiche, but combines an essay on Hollywood adaptations of mystery novels with a locked room murder. A big fan of mystery films is murdered inside his house, and several witnesses swear they saw a strange green, alien-like creature inside the house just moments before the murder was committed. But when the victim's fiancée and the local beat cop enter the house right after the murder, they find only the mask of the alien, with no sign of the person who should've been wearing it. A simple story: the impossible crime is just a minor variation of a familiar pattern. I described the story as a combination of an essay and a mystery short story, but that's really what it is. The first part was intended as an essay on Hollywood adaptations, but it was expanded a bit to include a mystery story.

The final story in the collection, Shounen wa Kaijin wo Yume Miru ("The Boy Who Dreamt of a Fiend"), is basically impossible to describe without giving it away. It's not a mystery story actually, more a fantasy/adventure novel and it ties in eventually with one of the more well-known figures in Japanese mystery fiction, but yeah, mentioning who would spoil the whole thing. Not a big fan of the story, but it is also a very different kind of story compared to the rest.

Overall though, I'd say Akechi Kogorou tai Kindaichi Kousuke is a very amusing pastische collection. The book features a lot of impossible crime situations, and I'd say most of them are actually quite good (especially the first half of the book), though I have to say the collection feels a lot more rewarding if you actually know the many characters that appear here, because the book definitely has a slight parody-angle.

Original Japanese title(s): 『明智小五郎対金田一耕助』: 「明智小五郎対金田一耕助」 / 「フレンチ警部と雷鳴の城」 / 「ブラウン神父と日本趣味（ジャポニズム）」 / 「そしてオリエント急行から誰もいなくなった」 / 「Ｑの悲劇　または二人の黒覆面の冒険」 / 「探偵映画の夜」 / 「少年は怪人を夢見る」

Famed Author To Live In Wrightsville

'Country looks good, by jake,' murmers Mr Queen enthusiastically. 'Green and yellow. Straw colors. And sky of blue, and clouds of white' -bluer blue and whiter wite than he recalled ever having seen before. City - country; and here they met, where Wrightsville station flings the twentieth century ito the astonished face of the land.

"Calamity Town"

I 'finished' reading the Ellery Queen series last year, but I have not reviewed all of the books on the blog (you can find the reviews either through the Ellery Queen tag, or in the library). Reviewing all the books here is certainly not a goal of mine, but I might reread some books and post a review on them once a while. Like today.

In order to get some peace and quiet, as well as inspiration to write a new book, Ellery Queen decides to move to Wrightsville: your typical New England town where everybody wishes you good morning by name, and life is simple. Using the brilliant fake name Ellery Smith, Ellery rents a furnished house from John and Hermione Wright, the oldest family of the town. He is the president of the Wrightsville National Bank, she is the top hen in Wrightsville society. Ellery is told that the house was originally intended as a wedding present for daughter Nora Wright and her husband-to-be Jim Haight. Jim however ran away from Nora and Wrightsville the day before their wedding, three years ago. After that incident, a potential buyer for the property had a heart attack right before the deal was sealed, so the house was given the name "Calamity House" by the people of Wrightsville, as it was reponsible for so many tragedies. Ellery becomes close to the Wrights, and especially Pat, Nora's younger sister, and gladly gives up his house when Jim sudenly returns to Nora, who quickly marry and move into their new home. However, Ellery and Pat discover that Jim might have deadly plans for his wife and despite precautions, Ellery can not prevent that a murder is commited under his watchful eye, even if the victim was an unexpected one. Can Ellery help his friends in Ellery Queen's Calamity Town (1942)?

Ah, Wrightsville, one of the most important places in Queen history. Wrightsville first appeared in Calamity Town, but Ellery Queen (both the character as well as the writers) grew fond of the simple town and would revisit the place several times in his career as writer and amateur detective in both novel and short story format. The place was also featured once in the TV series (The Adventure of the Chinese Dog). There are several reasons why Wrightsville would become so important, but one of them is definitely that Wrightsville, as a fictional town, simply works well as a setting. The opening chapter of Calamity Town paints a quaint little New England town that sounds nice to live in. The buildings described, the people and the relations portrayed: they all make up for a believable setting that. Calamity Town is often praised for its characterization, which is debatable I think, but one cannot deny that the town itself is done memorably. It kinda reminds of Dr. Sam Hawthorne's Northmont. And if you think about it, that's not strange. Queen novels have often featured memorable settings: the Roman theater, the French Department Store, the lone mansion in The Siamese Twin Mystery, the Spanish Cape. Sure, these might be smaller and slightly more specific locations, but setting has never been a problem in Queen's stories in my opinion and Wrightsville is a great example.

Wrightsville, as a whole character on its own, is also memorable because the way it changes over the course of the story. Whereas Ellery first comes to enjoy Wrightsville, he also starts to notice cracks in the perfect picture when the murder is committed and he sees how Wrightsville as a community basically starts to shun the Wright family, being the source of a scandal. Later stories also show darker sides of the model town, though I remember that being more like Cabot Cove (a setting for crimes to happen), than a portraying Wrightsville as a whole.

Calamity Town, together with Wrightsville, also stands symbol for a transition in Queen's style of plotting. The overly complex deductions and fantastic murder settings of his early novels (especially the "nationality" novels), were replaced with simpler plots with, well, more 'living characters' and less of random Suspect X, Y and Z. Like I mentioned, I don't think Calamity Town is especially impressive when it comes to characterization (save for Wrightsville itself), but in comparison to the earlier Queen novels, things certainly look a bit more human. The interaction with the town and its inhabitants also makes Ellery (the character) much more human and there is little of the pompous bibliophile from the earlier novels. By the way, the Dutch translation of the book features the title De Verliefde Detective ("The Detective In Love"), which also highlights a change in the character that started with The Four of Hearts.

But is the change a good thing? To be honest, I thought the mystery plot of Calamity Town was way too simple for an Ellery Queen novel. I want overly complex puzzle plots that focus on combining all kinds of hints and facts together to form a logical prison around the suspect when I read Ellery Queen. I don't want an Ellery Queen who literally takes months to solve the kind of murder he'd solve in minutes in earlier novels. I doubt seasoned readers of the genre will have any trouble figuring out who the murderer is in Calamity Town and even people without that much experience should figure out that a certain piece of misdirection really shouldn't be that misdirecting. It is a very minimalistic mystery plot and one that doesn't feel "Queen-like" per se. A novel like Ten Days' Wonder, also set in Wrightsville, for example, features a plot that one can distinctly recognize as Queen, but that is less so with Calamity Town. Because of that, I actually forgot most of this book. This is the second time I read the book, but I noticed I had forgotten most of it. The plot is just rather nondescript compared to other novels in the series.

For the Queen reader, there are some interesting points. On one hand, some familiar characters don't appear at all in this book, save for short references. With the move to Wrightsville, we also lose sight of Inspector Queen, who hadn't appeared in all of the previous books, but was certainly a character who appeared in most of the books. Also, it's pretty interesting to see Ellery so deeply involved with the stars of the drama so early on: in earlier novels, Ellery usually only arrived at the scene after the crime was commited, or very shortly before it.  Here, Ellery has been cultivating relations with everyone for a long while and thus has a personal connection to the whole ordeal. Very different from the 'detective coming from the outside' role Ellery used to have. On the other hand, the circumstances in which the murder is commited are very Queen-like: in a (relatively) open space with a lot of people around. It's been like that ever since The Roman Hat Mystery, but in Ellery Queen stories, the murders are often commited in fairly public places, or the corpses are discovered in such places. In that respect, Calamity Town does have a Queen-like feature, even if its scale is a lot more limited than in older books.

In general though, Calamity Town is very well-regarded as a detective novel, though as you can guess, I am not of the same opinion. H.R.F. Keatings for example had in his Crime and Mystery: the 100 Best Books for example, while the book also ranked in at 90 in the most recent edition of Japan's Tozai Mystery Best 100 for non-Japanese books. So obviously, your mileage may vary from mine on this book. There is a Japanese film based on this book, Haitatsu Sarenai Santsuu no Tegami ("The Three Undelivered Letters" 1979) by famous director Nomura Yoshitarou (Suna no Utsuwa, among others) which is supposedly quite good, though I haven't seen it yet. Considering that Nomura has done a ton of mystery films emphasizing human drama with a larger society backdrop (a lot of Matsumoto Seichou film adaptations for example), the choice for Calamity Town is an understandable one though.

Anyway, I don't think Calamity Town is the classic so many appear consider it to be, though I have to admit that the characterization of Wrightsville is done quite well in the book. The thing is: when I read Queen, I am not reading it for characterization or 'real' characters. That is an extra. I want complex puzzle plots that challenge me on an intellectual level. And in that respect, Calamity Town is not particularly rewarding,

A Battle of Bibliophiles

「・・・東口。伝言板にXYZーもうあとがない助けてくれーそう書けば望みが叶うという」

「Angel Heart」

"The East Exit. They say that if you write down XYZ --There's no hope anymore. Save me--on the message board there, your wish will come true."

"Angel Heart"

Drury Lane's Last Review. Even though I posted only one review a week, I actually wrote all the Lane reviews in two days. Well, I wrote the XYZ reviews in one day and started reading Drury Lane's Last Case the same day; the following day I finished the book and wrote today's review.

Drury Lane series
The Tragedy of X (1932)
The Tragedy of Y (1932)
The Tragedy of Z (1933) 
Drury Lane's Last Case (1933)

Even though Inspector Thumm doesn't work at the NY Police Department anymore, some things don't change. For one, he certainly doesn't mind if people still call him Inspector. Two, he still remembers all the people who worked for him during his years at the force. So when he is told that Donoghue, an ex-policeman who is now working for the Brittanic Museum, has gone missing, Thumm and his daughter Patience naturally accept the job. During their investigation of the Brittanic, they also discover an utterly strange theft: one of the three known copies of a 1599 Jaggard edition of The Passionate Pilgrim, a poem collection attributed to William Shakespeare, has been replaced with a 1606 edition of the same book, an edition of which nobody knew the existence and therefore much more valuable. What makes the case even more kooky is that the Brittanic's copy of the book is also sent back to the museum, although with a cut through its binding and a hundred dollar bill to cover costs of repair. Thus the Britannic is left with their own, damaged copy of the book and a more valuable edition of the book. Nobody knows what's going on, but as the whole case is linked with William Shakespeare, it's no surprise that Drury Lane, distinguished Shakespeare actor and amateur detective, is called one last time to appear on stage in Ellery Queen's Drury Lane's Last Case (1933).

The last of the Drury Lane novels, and the only one not to have be titled The Tragedy of..., even though the foreword does mention the subtitle The Tragedy of 1599. Like with The Tragedy of Z, Patience Thumm is the heroine of the story, though this time she isn't narrating. This was also the first Drury Lane novel I read. Heck, it's actually one of the very first Queen novels I ever read. As such, I have a sweet spot for it. Especially because I have a funny story to attach to it. Many, many years before I ever heard about Ellery Queen or Drury Lane, I was quite fond of a certain Mickey Mouse comic. With the power of Internet, I know now it was an Italian 1991 story titled Topolino e il segreto di William Topespeare (story code:  I TL 1872-B), but I knew it as Mickey en het geheim van William Mousespeare ("Mickey and the Secret of William Mousespeare"). Imagine my surprise when I first read Drury Lane's Last Case, and I discovered that the neat Mickey Mouse story about rare Mousespeare books being stolen only to be returned to their owners again with a slash through its cover wasn't completely original.

Drury Lane's Last Case is fairly different from the three previous Drury Lane novels though. For one, for most of the book, the plot revolves around the mysterious book-swapping in the museum. In short, this book is mostly a bibliomystery and murder only becomes a part of the play at the very end of the story. This is quite different from the three Tragedies, which basically all started with a mysterious death. For Queen fans, the bibliophilical angle shouldn't come as a surprise: it's a background the Queen cousins used very often in their books. And as there's a Shakespeare link, it's obvious why Drury Lane appears in this novel.

While the main mystery might be a bit tame compared to the previous books, I definitely like Drury Lane's Last Case a lot. For people who love books and historical mysteries, the plot about the stolen (and returned) books is more than just interesting. There's just something magic about hidden secrets about Shakespeare. What helps is that Queen never allows the plot to slow down: surprises are thrown at the reader all the time and it's hard to guess where the story is going because of all the revelations on the way. It'd say this is the most active book of the four Drury Lane novels, with even an Exciting Chase somewhere.Yet it never becomes too chaotic and the high-paced mystery about a book theft is miraculously exciting all the way to the end. After the somewhat slow The Tragedy of Z, this is certainly a welcome change in pacing. Also: the book is great fun because for the longest time, you have no idea what's going on. The Tragedy of X and Z were quite straightforward with their murders. The Tragedy of Y was also clear-cut, but also added a hint of insanity because of the odd murder, as well as the whole "Mad Hatter" household. Drury Lane's Last Case however is crazy from the start, with events happening that seemingly make no sense at all. It takes a while before things take shape though, and some might find that less appealing. I however love the crazy atmosphere.

The investigation eventually does turn into a murder investigation, but that's very late. What's interesting that here Drury Lane's Last Case turns back into the type of mystery you expect it to be. The line of reasoning that eventually leads to the identity of the murderer is as always focused on physical objects as clues, and deductions surrounding how the objects were used and such. As I noted in my review of The Tragedy of Y, a lot of the clues are actually recyled within the story, having multiple uses in the deduction chain, which is quite impressive and fun. For while a reader might notice one correct use of a clue, it might be a lot more difficult for someone to identify all necessary uses of a clue. The most significant clue in the book for example is used in two different ways.That said, Drury Lane's Last Case never comes even close to the logical reasonings laid out in the three Tragedies and is definitely the weakest one in terms of how impressive the final deduction chain is.

The last part of the book also feels a bit detached from the first part (the 'straight' bibliomystery) though and the book overall feels less like "one" story, compared to the previous books. The last part does follow from the previous, but the non-murder part and the murder part feel quite different from each other. Not a bad thing per se, but the previous books were quite impressive because they always showed how a view on the complete case was necessary to figure out who the murderer was. That is less obvious in Drury Lane's Last Case.

But I do really like Drury Lane's Last Case though, because it's so weird. Logic-wise, it's not as impressive as the previous three books, but it makes up for that by just being a lot more unpredictable than those books.

The Z

「獠に依頼したぁ～いなんて思ってなぁい？　この頼れる俺にさ！　いいぜ。受けても・・・言えよ例のセリフを・・・さ！　・・・言えよ♡」

 「・・・X・・・Y・・・Z・・・」

「Angel Heart」

"Aren't you thinking about asking me for help? Trustworthy old me? Okay. I'll help you...just say it. You know what. Say it ♡"

"...X...Y...Z..."

"Angel Heart"

And today, the final letter of the alphabet! The next post will conclude this series of reviews.

Drury Lane series
The Tragedy of X (1932)
The Tragedy of Y (1932)
The Tragedy of Z (1933) 
Drury Lane's Last Case (1933)

It's been a decade since Mr. Drury Lane, retired Shakespeare actor and amateur detective, solved the Longstreet Murder and the Hatter Murder. Things have changed of course in those years. Inspector Thumm for example quit the force and started his own private detective agency. His bright and independent daughter Patience returned from Europe and started working as her father's assistant. District Attorney Bruno is now Governor Bruno. But crime never changes. Thumm and his daughter are hired by marble entrepeneur Elihu Clay, because he suspects his silent partner Dr. Fawcett might be involving their company with shady deals. During their stay in Tilden County, Senator Fawcett (brother and suspected accomplice of Dr. Fawcett) is murdered. A cut-up toy chest is discovered to be a major clue, linking the murder to a long-time guest of nearby Algonquin Prison.The local police inspector and district attorney think they have their man, but Patience is quite sure they are wrong and intends to prove her worth as a detective in Ellery Queen's The Tragedy of Z (1933).

The last Drury Lane book to carry the title "Tragedy", but also the first to star Patience Thumm, the daughter of Inspector Thumm who suddenly appeared in this book even though not one reference had ever been made to her in the earlier two adventures. She would also star in the last book, Drury Lane's Last Case. Patience is a weird character. I've seen her described as a crossdressing Ellery Queen once, which isn't that far off actually. Writing a convincing female narrator was definitely not a forte of the Queen cousins. Patience has an interesting function though: she is a very intelligent girl, but unlike Drury Lane, she is also more directly involved with the investigation and is less likely to keep quiet (thus driving the plot forward). Because of that, we have two detectives running around in this novel: while it's Drury Lane who saves the day at the end, there is no doubt that Patience did more than her share of the deductions necessary to capture the murderer. As a female detective following the Queen school of logical reasoning, she is interesting, but still, she really does feel like Ellery with a wig on.

The Tragedy of Z is also perhaps the most boring of the three Tragedies. It is quite a bit shorter than the previous two books, but feels just as long, not because it's so exciting, but because the middle part drags a bit. Both The Tragedy of X and The Tragedy of Y start right off with a mysterious death and the plot basically does not stop until the very end when Drury Lane explains everything. The Tragedy of Z feels a lot slower, with crime scenes that never become as memorable as the street car murder in The Tragedy of X or the mandolin murder in The Tragedy of Y. For most part, it's definitely a step down compared to the previous two letters.

That the first couple of deduction chains of Patience feel a bit... dodgy isn't helping either. Sure, at a later point Drury Lane proves that Patience is indeed right, but even so, it feels a bit arbitrary and not completely convincing. Of course, mystery fiction is always something of the imagination and therefore 'unreal', but that's why it has to be written convincingly. And we know Ellery Queen was capable of coming up with much more solid deductions, so it was not a lack of talent that was at the core of this problem. Especially as Patience's deductions revolve around that what Queen does best: deduce certain characteristics of the murderer by focusing on objects as clues. How they were used, in what state they were found, who could've used them, all of that is Queen's M.O., so it's a bit disappointing when the result is not as good as we usually see from him. When the book is a bit slow and the first couple of deductions aren't really convincing, than you have a battle uphill.

That said though, the final part of the book, when Drury Lane reveals who the murderer is, is fantastic. This is what I expect from Queen! Slowly building a prison around his suspect with bricks of logic! Identitfying the characteristics of the murderer, and comparing them to the suspects! The ending is really impressive, set in a memorable place with Drury Lane quickly, but convincingly proving who the murderer is. In fact, it's amazing howswift the conclusions are in Queen novels. I mean: the explanation of how the detective arrives at his list of characteristics is usually long, but once you have a list of five or six items, it's usually just crossing off suspects. You're out, you're out, you're it. The Tragedy of Z has one that is quick, convincing and satisfying.

There is a trial scene in The Tragedy of Z, which is actually also something you often see in Queen novels. The Tragedy of X had one too, but there's also Halfway House and Calamity Town for example. Trial scenes in Queen are never used as the conclusion of a book though, so usually, you can take a good guess at how those trials will end.

The Tragedy of Z is overall weaker than The Tragedy of X and The Tragedy of Y, there's no doubt to that in my mind. But the conclusion of Z is perhaps the strongest of the three Tragedies, providing a much better showcase of how clues and deductions are handled in Ellery Queen novels. The rest of the book isn't bad per se, but the star of the book is definitely the final chain of revelations made by Mr. Drury Lane.

The House of Mystery

「XYZだ・・・香！！年も離れててろくでもない男で・・・国籍なくて正式に結婚できなくて・・・だからこんな事言う資格ないかもしれんが・・・」

「ごちゃごちゃうるさい！」

「一緒になってくれ、香」

 『Angel Heart』

"XYZ! Kaori! I might be older than you and just a worthless bum...I don't have any nationality so I can't even marry you officially... perhaps I don't even have the right to ask you, but..."

"Stop talking around it!"

"Kaori. Let's be together."

"Angel Heart"

Part two of the Drury Lane review series!

Drury Lane series
The Tragedy of X (1932)
The Tragedy of Y (1932)
The Tragedy of Z (1933) 
Drury Lane's Last Case (1933)

The Mad Hatters, the newspapers called them, and mad, the Hatters were. Perhaps you could say they had a lot of "character". And even York Hatter, husband of family matriarch Emily Hatter couldn't cope any longer with his wife and his children and grandchildren and decided to take early leave from life. In retrospect. York's death was just the prologue to the tragedy which would happen in the Hatter house. The first act was an attempt at poisoning Louisa's egg-nogg, Emily's first daughter from a prior marriage who was blind, deaf and dumb. Luckily (?), one of Emily's naughty grandchildren had gulped down the egg-nogg before Louisa could and he was saved thanks to Emily's quick reaction. The other children from the Hatter marriage are not very fond of Louisa (who hogged all of mother Emily's attention because of her condition), but would any of them have stooped to poisoning their half-sister? But the mystery really starts to deepen when some months later, Emily Hatter is found murdered in her bedroom (which she shared with Louisa after the poisoning attempt), having been bashed on the head with a mandolin!  Was there someone trying to kill all the Hatters? The problem is one which troubled both Inspector Thumm and District Attorney Bruno, and the two once again ask Drury Lane, professional Shakespeare intepreter and amateur detective to help solve Ellery Queen's The Tragedy of Y (1932).

This is the second adventure of Drury Lane and like The Tragedy of X, this too is a very highly regarded mystery novel. In fact, in the most recent Tozai Mystery Best 100 ranking (of non-Japanese titles), the book ranked second place, behind Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. This was the second Drury Lane book I read by the way, after Drury Lane's Last Case (which again shows I never read things in the right order). It's probably my favorite Drury Lane novel too, even though I think that in general, The Tragedy of X is regarded better than this one.

Like I pointed out in my review of The Tragedy of X, that book is very obviously a book written by Ellery Queen. The Tragedy of Y on the other hand, not that obvious. At least, not in terms of tropes and setting. In fact, if there's one thing the book reminds me of, it's S.S. Van Dine's The Greene Murder Case (1929), which was no doubt a source of some inspiration for the Queen cousins for The Tragedy of Y. The book is mostly confined to one setting (the Hatter home) and revolves about the fate of a family with a fair number of not-so-nice members, which are probably the defining characteristics of The Greene Murder Case. As I already indicated in my review of The Greene Murder Case, the book has been an influence on Japanese detective fiction, but that's definitely in conjunction with The Tragedy of Y. The two of them are probably the most famous books in their specific type of setting (family murders in a mansion), and were major infuences on Oguri Mushitarou's infamous anti-mystery Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken (1934). Following this line further, we also have Yokomizo Seishi: many of his Kindaichi Kousuke novels revolve around family feuds in mansions. In a sort of branch-line we have Ayatsuji Yukito in more recent years, who focuses more on the buildings (mansions) themselves. While the setting is not typical Queen, we'd sometimes see it in some of his works, like The Siamese Twin Mystery (1933, an isolated mansion in the mountains, with fairly strange inhabitants) and The Player on the Other Side (1963, ghostwritten).

By the way, at a certain point in the story the will of Emily Hatter is presented, and the complexity of it (with all sort of clauses to protect one certain person) reminded me a lot of Yokomizo Seishi: especially The Inugami Clan, which had one of the most convoluted last wills ever (which was definitely a reason why all those murders were commited in that book). In general, complex wills usually result in murders in mystery fiction.

The story is mostly confined to the house, and with the attempted poisoning of Louisa and the bizarre murder on Emily Hatter  (a mandoline as weapon) hapening in quick succession (in terms of pages), The Tragedy of Y has a strange, pressing and somewhat creepy atmosphere. The Hatter home has quite the number of strange secrets and weird revelations hidden for the reader, one of them for example York Hatter's laboratory inside the house, which will prove to be of importance to the case in more ways than one. Now I think about it, a lot of the clues in this book are used in multiple ways (and not just "This points to X, and now you can throw this hint away"). Heh. Clue recycling. Anyway, The Tragedy of Y feels unreal, like a play, and that's why Drury Lane fits wonderfully in this story, because the whole case is just nuts. And that's why I like about it. For a very long time, nothing makes sense in this novel. And it's unsettling.

Louisa, as a blind, deaf and dumb person, is a very interesting character in this story. She is actually witness to the murder of her mother, but because of her special condition, her testimony has to rely on very different senses than the ones we usually associate with "witness". It's again an element that makes The Tragedy of Y feel bizarre and it is very effective.

In terms of mystery plot, The Tragedy of Y covers familiar ground: as in most Queen novels, figuring out the murderer is very well possible by applying logical reasoning based on the clues provided. As often in Queen novels, clues take the form of physical objects, though the deduction based on them can be about all kinds of things (for example, 'the state of an object', or 'who could've used the object' etc.). The Tragedy of Y can be a bit trickier than The Tragedy of X though; The Tragedy of X is fairly straightforward in its reasoning, but The Tragedy of Y is, as I said earlier, a bit nuts, and it is a lot more difficult to reconstruct the whole chain fo reasoning Drury Lane presents by yourself. In fact, there is one point in the chain that asks of some inspiration if you want to figure it out yourself, and that is not usually the case in Queen-like deductions. Also, at a certain point "a significant clue" is discovered by Drury Lane, which basically explains all, even though the story continues for a little while, as if it's still a mystery. It's a bit of a shame, because while the solution is shocking, it's as if the story forget they just showed you a clue that basically told you everything. That said though, the initial chain of reasoning that led Drury Lane to the murderer is still good, and The Tragedy of Y also has one of my favorite clues of all time (people who have read the book, can probably guess what it is).

And this is another thing for those who have read the book: I actually have a Korean version of The Tragedy of Y. The cover of it is almost too brilliant, as it....err, makes one certain character very very suspicious. I recommend you to only click this link if you already read The Tragedy of Y, but I think most will agree this cover might not've been the best choice.

As an experiment in deduction, The Tragedy of Y is not as neat as The Tragedy of X, even if it's still amazing for most standards. But it's the wacky and bizarre setting and characters that make this a favorite of mine and definitely the first Drury Lane novel I'd recommend anyone to read.

Deus Ex Machina

「このカクテルの名はXYZ－つまり、もう後がないということさ。マスターがおれに助けを求める時の合図だよ」

「シティーハンター」

"The name of that cocktail is XYZ... meaning there's no more hope left. The barkeeper uses it as a signal for when he needs my help."

"City Hunter"

I recently re-read my The XYZ Murders omnibus, which collects The Tragedy of X, The Tragedy of Y and The Tragedy of Z. As I haven't reviewed any of the Drury Lane novels yet on the blog, I figured I might as well write something about them, as I think quite highly of them. So the month of February will feature quite a lot of Tragedies.

Drury Lane series
The Tragedy of X (1932)
The Tragedy of Y (1932)
The Tragedy of Z (1933) 
Drury Lane's Last Case (1933)

Mr. Drury Lane is a retired Thespian known throughout the world for his interpretations of the work of Shakespeare. His estate is called The Hamlet, consisting of a castle and accompanying castle village that would've fitted the period when the Bard lived, but are horribly anachronistic in 1930s New York. Inspector Thumm of the NY Police and District Attorney Bruno find themselves at the Hamlet, because they ask for Lane's help not as an actor, but as a gifted amateur detective who has helped the police in the past. The problem: the Longstreet Murder. Longstreet was a slick broker, who was murdered in a street car, on his way back to his house with a party of "friends" to celebrate his engagement. The murder weapon was one that would remain in the annals of Fictional Crime: a cork with countless of needles covered in nicotine had been slipped into his pocket and some pricks later, the man was dead. Despite thorough investigation, Thumm has not been able to zero in on a suspect, but Drury Lane boldy asserts he knows who the murderer is based simply based on Thumm and Bruno's recount  of the case. But despite that, Lane does not reveal who he suspects, and that is of course something the Inspector and the D.A. don't really like, especially not if a second murder is committed connected to the Longstreet Murder. And that wasn't the end of Ellery Queen's The Tragedy of X (1932).

It's common knowledge by now, but for those who don't know: the Ellery Queen cousins (Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee) made their debut in 1929 with The Roman Hat Mystery. In 1932 however, they came up with a second pen name, Barnaby Ross, who'd be responsible for four novels starring the amateur-detective Drury Lane. For a while, the Queen cousins played with these two identities (even having "Ellery Queen" and "Barnaby Ross" debating with each other), but eventually the gig was up and nowadays the Drury Lane novels are known as Queen novels. The Tragedy of X is the first of the novels and also one of the best regarded books written by Ellery Queen. In the most recent edition of the Tozai Mystery Best 100 (for non-Japanese novels) for example, the book ranked in at 14 as the second Ellery Queen work (The Tragedy of Y ranked in at second place).

This was a re-read by the way, which happened under the better cirumstances than the first time I read the book, actually. While it's the first of the Drury Lane novels, it was actually the last one I read because I never read things in order, and I don't remember why, but it took me ages to get through it because of circumstances, so the book, as a whole, never left much of an impression on me except for some specific scenes (though I still thought it was a good book). I learned to appreciate the book a lot better this time around though.

I wonder how long it took for people back in the day to notice The Tragedy of X was written by Ellery Queen? Because the thing is rather obviously a Queen product. It reminds especially of The Roman Hat Mystery. Ellery was the detective in Roman Hat, and Lane obviously the one in The Tragedy of X, but both books are actually structured around the police investigation: Roman Hat was all about Inspector Queen's investigation while The Tragedy of X mostly follows Inspector Thumm's efforts, occasionally interrupted by very short actions of Lane. This focus on the police investigation, and not on 'the great detective' can also be seen in the dynamic between the Inspector and the District Attorney in both books. Bruno in The Tragedy of X is a very important person in the investigation, but who of us still remember District Attorney Samson, who appeared very often in the earlier Queen novels? At some points the narrative does switch over to Lane though, who does a bit of sleuthing himself, though in retrospect, it appears to me some of that could've been done through the official channels anyway, despite Lane saying he wanted to keep some things secret from the Inspector and the D.A.

The whole premise of the first, and the consequent murders is also typical Queen. A lot of the early Queen novels had murders in strange, and often fairly public spaces. A murder in a theater, a murder in a department store, one during a rodeo show. The Tragedy of X starts off with a murder committed inside a packed street car, but follows up with even more deaths on means of public transportation. Because of that, we see another typical Queen device in The Tragedy of X: having to confine a lot of potential suspects and search each of them for clues, in the form of an object. Similar to how everyone in the Roman Theater was detained for search by Inspector Queen, Inspector Thumm also uses the 'search everybody and everywhere' command often in this novel. Queen loved this trope and has written many stories where there is a specific search for something and The Tragedy of X betrays its writer in that respect also. The Tragedy of X is a bit special in the sense that it does not make clear why Thumm's search will prove to be important until later, while in The Roman Hat Mystery, it was made quite clear what the inspector was searching for (hint: it's in the title).

In a sense, The Tragedy of X is a very over-the-top novel, and much more... energetic than most of Queen's other novels. The book starts right off with a mystery, and that's something we often see with Queen. But more deaths follow, accompanied by trails of clues and red herrings and the story basically is running at max speed until the very end. Few (early) Queen novels are as engaging as this one. One of the is The Greek Coffin Mystery though, which was published in the same year. Like that book, The Tragedy of X is divided in several 'acts', which keeps the reader's eyes glued to the pages. But this is also done by some weirdly grotesque devices: the murder weapon (the needles coated in nicotine sticking out of a cork) for example is one of the most bizarre, yet effective murder weapons I've ever seen. And there are some gruesome parts later in the story too (the second death in particular), which make this a captivating read.

But most of all, Queen's hand can be felt in the method in which Drury Lane solves the case. At the foundation, The Tragedy of X is "simply" a variation of a very classic trope of mystery fiction. But Lane arrives at that conclusion with the same logical reasoning we expect from an Ellery Queen novel. For a deeper (and more chaotic) write-up on the types of clues in Queen novels, I refer to this post, but in general, the "correct" way of solving a Queen novel is to figure out the characteristics we know the murderer must have and then see which of the suspects fits the pattern. Of course, figuring out those characteristics isn't as easy as it sounds, and demands quite some thinking, but it's usually a lot fairer than expecting the reader to point out the murderer by a sudden flash of genius. The Tragedy of X in particular is very memorable, because it is actually possible to figure out who the murderer very probably is at the very start of the book, as Drury Lane himself also states. The rest of the adventure mostly helps confirming his thoughts. While I think it's quite possible for a reader to correctly guess the murderer, I doubt many will have gone through the complete deduction chain Drury Lane presents at the end of the book, which is really the highlight of the book and a great example of logical reasoning in mystery fiction. This is obviously also the reason why it's so well-regarded.

Also of importance for Queen fans: The Tragedy of X has a dying message. The dying message was a favorite of the Queen cousins, and especially often seen in the short stories. I think The Tragedy of X might even be the first dying message of Queen, from the top of my head? The other novel I strongly associate with dying messages is The Siamese Twin Mystery, but that was published in 1933. The one from The Siamese Twin Mystery is much more interesting though.

The Tragedy of X is one of the better known books by Ellery Queen (Barnaby Ross) and rightfully so. It's a wonderful experiment in deduction and even though at the core, it's actually a very familiar problem, the execution is daring, impressive and memorable. Definitely of the must-reads of Queen.

Q.E.D.

Glory spent many hours with crosswords, Double-Crostics, anagrams, and detective stories (the classic bafflers of the field--she had no use of the sex-and-violence or psychological mysteries that began to clog the paperback racks after World War II)

"Face to Face"

It's been many, many years, but I've finally worked myself through all of the Ellery Queen novels. Well, there's still the non-series Cop Out, the real crime based The Woman in the Case and the critical works left, but my primary interests have always been the writer Ellery and Drury Lane series, so now I'm done! Today, no less than three Queen novels in one post!

In Ellery Queen's Face to Face (1967), Ellery and the Scottish private detective Harry Burke have just returned from Europe when they are contacted by Roberta, a pretty girl who says she was once the lover of the infamous womanizer 'count' Carlos Armando, current husband of the famous retired singer Gloria Guild. Or to be exact: ex-husband, for Gloria Guild was murdered that evening. Roberta tells the two that half a year ago, Armando had made her an offer: she would kill Gloria (for Armando, as the prime suspect, needed an alibi) and the two of them could share the inheritance. Roberta refused, but now that Gloria has indeed been murdered, she is convinced that Armando found another silly girl that fell for the count's charms and commited the murder for him. Ellery and Burke try to find out who the mysterious aide of Armando was, helped by a dying message by Guild in the form of four simple letters: f a c e.

I have to admit that I didn't have very high expectations for these last couple of left-over Queens, for the simple reason that I had been going through them in order of interest and opportunity: I hadn't read these Queens only because they didn't look too interesting and I just happened to never come across them. But I concede, Face to Face was actually quite enjoyable. I do think that is partly because so many elements feel almost eerily familiar and whether you consider this good or bad: Face to Face is a rearrangement of previously seen plots developments and other elements. For we have already seen the dying message (oh so often with Queen), the love-stricken private detective helping Ellery (Terry and Beau), the dangerous womanizer, shenanigans with last wills, the mysterious person from the past popping up. Even the overly dramatic ending seems lifted from an older Queen.

But on the other hand, these elements do work fairly well together in Face to Face and there is a good pace throughout the story. Also, while the dying message 'f a c e' returns in the title and it is fairly important to the plot, it luckily is not the only element carrying the mystery plot: dying messages just don't do very well as cornerstones of novel-length mystery stories. On the other hand, the most vital clue to the solution is classic Queen and I quite love it. It is fair, it's almost in your face and yet so easy to overlook. The chain from hint to solution is a bit short and thin, but overall, Face to Face is more than decent.

The Last Woman in His Life (1970) is set just after Face to Face, with Ellery in need of a vacation. He and his old man go to good old Wrightsville, taking on the offer to stay in one of two holiday houses of John Levering Benedict, wealthy jetsetter and proud owner of no less than three ex-wives. Benedict, his laywer (and his secretary) and the ex-wives all gather in the other Wrightsville hideout, talking inheritance businesses. That night, Ellery is called by a dying Benedict, who leaves him the dying message 'home'. At the crime scene, the police discovers a dead Benedict and no less than three crucial clues: the wig of one ex-wife, the dress of another ex-wife and the evening gloves of the last ex-wife. But why these clues and what did Benedict mean when he said earlier that he had decided on 'the last woman in his life'?

Another Wrightsville story (by now Ellery should be denied access to the town), another dying message story and also one that shows that dying message stories don't lend them too well for longer stories. Stuff happens, discoveries are made, but ultimately everything can, and is revealed through Benedict's dying words. So a good part of the book feels like padding. The hint is too ingenious for its own good. There is absolutely no way that that particular sitation could have led to that particular dying message, despite Ellery's very very detailed explanation and his answers to all of the old man's (very natural) questions. The reasoning appears to be sound, but if you realize the utterance was made by a man dying with little time left, than it kinda falls apart. Also, the motive also makes the book feel quite dated. Good stuff is done with the wig, dress and gloves (reminding of an early Queen novel), but overall, I think The Last Woman in His Life would have worked much better as a simpler short story.

Middle-aged millionaire Ashton McKell, his wife Lutecia and their writer-son Dane may seem like the typical well-off family, but the three also form a triangle surrounding Sheila Grey,  the famous haute couture designer and self-made woman who occupies the penthouse in the same luxury apartment building where the McKells live. Sheila is Ashton's mistress, Lutecia is aware of her husband's infidelity with Sheila and Dane tries to steal Sheila way so his father returns to his mother. This sitation is of course already quite unsightly, but the consequent murder on Sheila Grey naturally does little to help it: investigation by the police quickly puts the initial spotlight on Ashton, but further developments make it hard to determine which side of the McKell triangle was reponsible for the murder in The Fourth Side of the Triangle (1965).

The Fourth Side of the Triangle was one of the ghost-written Queen novels: it was written by Avram Davidson based on an extended outline by, and also edited by the Queen cousins. It was also turned into the pilot film Too Many Suspects of the excellent Ellery Queen TV series starring Jim Hutton. In fact, I like the Too Many Suspects version better than the original novel version. Both versions are not particularly inspiring stories, but there are quite some setting changes between the two. The ending of the original novel however is just disappointing: a deus-ex-machina just pages before the ending leads to the solution and basically everything you've read feels like a waste of time because if a decisive clue is coming falling out of the sky anyway, at least do it right away after the murder and don't try to fill up time with plot developments that prove to be useless. This is luckily changed in Too Many Suspects and while still a bit shakey on the question if it's completely fair, it's doing a lot better than the novel and looking at the whole of things (for example, the new solution ties in wonderfully with the TV/radio setting often utilized in the Ellery Queen TV shows), I think Too Many Suspects is the superior version.

I knew from the start that I wouldn't find The Greek Coffin Mystery-quality mystery novels in these remaining three Queens, but I have to say, I was quite surprised by Face to Face. The rest isn't really must-read material, unless you're trying to go through all of Queen. Anyway, that was it for today and so long Queen, thanks for all the fish.