Looking for trouble, Ellery Queen descends on a small town
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.
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The mystery author is hoping for fodder for a novel, and he senses the corruption that lurks beneath the apple pie faÃ§ade. He rents a house owned by the townâ€™s first family, whose three daughters star in most of the local gossip. One is fragile, left at the altar three years ago and never recovered. Another is engaged to the cityâ€™s rising political star, an upright man whoâ€™s already boring her. And then thereâ€™s Lola, the divorced, bohemian black sheep. Together, they make a volatile combination. Once he sees the ugliness in Wrightsville, Queen sits backâ€”waiting for the crime to come to him.

Calamity Town

Literature & Fiction

QUEEN, Ellery

United States

Perennial

[Library Edition Audiobook CD in Vinyl case.] [Read by Patrick Cullen] When Gloria Guild, the singing ''Glory'' of the thirties and millionairess wife of count Carlos Armando, is murdered, she leaves only one clue: the word ''face'' written in her dying scrawl. Who or what is ''face''? Ellery and his father the Inspector, British agent Harry Burke, and Sergeant Velle all get involved. Ellery's search takes him from the Bowery to a way-out wedding before he arrives at a shocking conclusion.

Face to Face

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. Now Queen must harness all of his skills to prevail over this unscrupulous mind.

The Origin of Evil (HarperPerennial reprint 1992)

Harper-perennial

Cornelia Potts is a wicked woman with millio ns of dollars, a henpecked husband, and six miserable childr en. Every life she touches turns to sheer hell. Then, one by one, the inhabitants of the vast, grotesque Potts mansion a re visited by death. '

There Was an Old Woman

Ellery is driving through Death Valley when his car breaks down. In the desert he meets a strange man, w ho welcomes him as a sort of prophet into an isolationist re ligious community. He is asked to root out corruption in the ir midst. '

And on the 8th Day

1994, trade paperback edition (of a title first published in 1938), Harper Perennial, NY. 250 pages. Ellery Queen was a pen name for two cousins who, in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, along with Rex Stout, led the way re. American mystery writers. Most of the biggest names in the field were British, but Queen was one of the ones who turned things around. Our man Ellery has been hired as a writer out West on a major motion picture shoot. Something is about to happen to our two very visible super stars.

The Four of Hearts: An Ellery Queen Mystery

Harpercollins

The King is Dead

The King Is Dead

Ellery is persuaded to accompany an old friend to his ancestral home when the latter arrives at Ellery's house covered in blood and unable to remember anything from the past few weeks. There, tensions erupt and foul play results in the murder of one of the household's members. Originally published by Little, Brown in 1948.

Ten Days' Wonder

There was an old woman

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Penguin

[MP3-CD audiobook format in Vinyl case. *NOTE: The MP3-CD format requires a compatible audio CD player.][Read by Mark Peckham]When a man is born to be a murderer, it's only a matter of time before he claims his birthright. -- Could murder really be hereditary? Davy Fox certainly thinks so. When he was only a boy, his father, Bayard Fox, was convicted of murdering Davy's mother in the small town of Wrightsville. Now that Davy has grown up and returned home from the war, he fears that it is only a matter of time until he kills his own wife. But could he really do such a thing? Desperate to find out the truth, Davy's wife, Linda, calls on Ellery Queen to investigate the twelve-year-old murder of Jessica Fox.

The Murderer Is a Fox

Contemporary

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