Line #93 Creator/ElleryQueen


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/image_5379.jpeg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Manfred B. Lee (l) and Fredric Dannay (r)]]
3
4	->''Half-Way House'', By Ellery Queen
5
6	->''I can recommend to the lover of the detective novel (which must not be confused with the mere adventure novel or those of international espionage, inevitably inhabited by sumptuous female spies that fall in love and secret documents) this last book of Ellery Queen. I can say that it meets the first requirements of the genre: statement of all the terms of the problem; economy of characters and resources; primacy of the how over the whom; a solution necessary and wonderful, but not supernatural. (In detective stories, hypnotism, telepathic hallucinations, elixirs of evil operation, witches and warlocks, real magic and recreational physics, are scams.) Ellery Queen plays with the supernatural, as does [[Creator/GKChesterton Chesterton]], but in a lawful way: he suggests it to make the mystery bigger in the problem statement, then forgets or denies it in the solution.''
7
8	->''In the history of the detective genre (dating from April 1841, the date of the publication of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Creator/EdgarAllanPoe), Ellery Queen novels import a deviation, or a little progress. I refer to his art. The novelist often proposes a vulgar clarification of the mystery, then dazzles his readers with an ingenious solution. Ellery Queen proposes, like all the others, a not so interesting explanation, suggests (at last) a very beautiful solution which the reader falls in love with, then refutes it and discovers a third solution, which is the correct one: always less strange than the second, but entirely unpredictable and satisfying. Other great novels of Ellery Queen: The Egyptian Cross Mystery, the Dutch Shoe Mystery, The Siamese Twin Mystery''
9
10	-->--'''Creator/JorgeLuisBorges.''' Revista Hogar, October 30, 1936
11
12	Golden age mystery writer, used as both a pen name for two authors, cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee (real names Daniel Nathan and Emanuel Benjamin Lepofsky), and as the eponymous character. Queen, the character, is a [[Main/MysteryWriterDetective mystery writer]] and [[Main/AmateurSleuth amateur sleuth]], who solves crimes with the aid of his policeman father, Inspector Richard Queen. Additionally, Dannay and Lee wrote four novels under the name of "Barnaby Ross"; all of which featured Drury Lane, a deaf Shakespearean actor turned [[Main/AmateurSleuth amateur sleuth]].
13
14	For the television series featuring the Queen character, see ''Series/ElleryQueen''.
15
16	Books by (and/or) featuring Ellery Queen:
17
18	'''Novels'''
19	* ''The Roman Hat Mystery'' — 1929
20	* ''The French Powder Mystery'' — 1930
21	* ''The Dutch Shoe Mystery'' — 1931
22	* ''The Greek Coffin Mystery'' — 1932
23	* ''The Egyptian Cross Mystery'' — 1932
24	* ''The American Gun Mystery'' — 1933
25	* ''The Siamese Twin Mystery'' — 1933
26	* ''The Chinese Orange Mystery'' — 1934
27	* ''The Spanish Cape Mystery'' — 1935
28	* ''The Lamp of God'' — 1935
29	* ''Halfway House'' — 1936
30	* ''The Door Between'' — 1937
31	* ''The Devil to Pay'' — 1938
32	* ''The Four of Hearts'' — 1938
33	* ''The Dragon's Teeth'' AKA ''The Virgin Heiresses'' — 1939
34	* ''Calamity Town'' — 1942
35	* ''There Was an Old Woman'' AKA ''The Quick and the Dead'' — 1943
36	* ''The Murderer is a Fox'' — 1945
37	* ''Ten Days' Wonder'' — 1948
38	* ''Cat of Many Tails'' — 1949
39	* ''Double, Double'' — 1950
40	* ''The Origin of Evil'' — 1951
41	* ''Literature/{{The King Is Dead\|1952}}'' — 1952
42	* ''The Scarlet Letters'' — 1953
43	* ''The Glass Village'' —1954 (neither Ellery Queen nor Inspector Queen in book)
44	* ''Inspector Queen's Own Case'' — 1956 (Inspector Queen only)
45	* ''The Finishing Stroke'' — 1958
46	* ''The Player on The Other Side'' — 1963
47	* ''…and on the Eighth Day…''— 1964
48	* ''The Fourth Side of The Triangle'' — 1965
49	* ''A Study in Terror'' AKA ''Ellery Queen vs Jack The Ripper'' — 1966
50	* ''Face to Face'' — 1967
51	* ''The House of Brass'' — 1968 (A sequel to ''Inspector Queen's Own Case'' with a minimal appearance by Ellery.)
52	* ''Cop Out'' — 1969 (neither Ellery Queen nor Inspector Queen appear)
53	* ''The Last Woman in His Life'' — 1970
54	* ''A Fine and Private Place'' — 1971
55
56	'''Short Story Collections'''
57	* ''The Adventures of Ellery Queen'' — 1934
58	* ''The New Adventures of Ellery Queen'' —1940
59	* ''The Case Book of Ellery Queen'' — 1945
60	* ''Calendar Of Crime'' — 1952
61	* ''QBI: Queen's Bureau of Investigation'' — 1955
62	* ''Queens Full'' — 1966
63	* ''QED: Queen's Experiments In Detection'' — 1968
64	* ''The Best Of Ellery Queen'' — 1985 (includes "Wedding Anniversary", otherwise uncollected, and a complete list of Ellery Queen short stories)
65	* ''The Tragedy Of Errors'' — 1999 (a previously unpublished synopsis written by Dannay, which was to be a Queen novel, plus all the previously uncollected short stories)
66	* ''The Adventure of the Murdered Moths and Other Radio Mysteries'' — 2005
67
68	'''As Barnaby Ross'''
69	* ''The Tragedy Of X'' — 1932
70	* ''The Tragedy Of Y'' — 1932
71	* ''The Tragedy Of Z'' — 1933
72	* ''Drury Lane's Last Case'' — 1933
73	----
74	!!Tropes used by Ellery Queen:
75
76	* AssholeVictim: Particularly in the television adaptation, the victims often were involved in underhanded dealings, had some sinister secret or were revealed to treat others by anything other than the Golden Rule.
77	* AutopsySnackTime: Doc Proutie has been known to do this.
78	* BarelyThereSwimwear: In "The Adventure of the Treasure Hunt" Ellery declines searching some people in bathing suits after a reasonably large item goes missing, stating "you couldn't conceal anything larger than a fly's wing in those costumes."
79	* BetterManhandleTheMurderWeapon: In "No Place to Live", one suspect is found standing over the body holding a pistol. It is later revealed that she picked the gun up because she recognised it as her husband's.
80	* TheBoxingEpisode: "Mind Over Matter" and "A Matter of Seconds".
81	* CanonDiscontinuity: The first novel ''The Roman Hat Mystery'' supposedly describes an event that happened some time in the past, and mentions that Ellery now lives in Italy with his wife and daughter. The wife, daughter and retirement to Italy are never mentioned in any of the subsequent books that establish that Ellery is a bachelor who lives with his father in New York (apart from a brief period of living in Hollywood).
82	* CanonImmigrant: Ellery's secretary Nikki Porter was originally created for the radio show, but went on to appear in two of the novels and several short stories.
83	* CharacterNameAlias: In ''The Origin of Evil'', there is a character who calls himself Alfred Wallace. Recognising the connotations of the name (Wallace was a naturalist and contemporary of Darwin who independently proposed a theory of natural selection) is what starts Ellery down the path to the solution of the mystery.
84	* ChristmasEpisode: ''The Finishing Stroke''
85	* CigarChomper: Sgt. Veelie
86	* ClearTheirName: In ''Calamity Town'' Ellery tries to help Patricia Wright clear her brother-in-law Jim Haight when he is accused of the attempted poisoning of his wife Nora and the AccidentalMurder of his sister Rosemary. Not only does all available evidence work to convict Jim, but he flat out refuses to testify on his own behalf.
87	* ComicBookTime: Ellery goes through numerous changes during his run, but he stays at about the same age from 1929 to 1971. Some books (like ''The Finishing Stroke'') acknowledge the passage of time, and Inspector Queen eventually retires, but Ellery is certainly not in his 60s (or older) by the time of ''A Fine and Private Place''.
88	* ConnectTheDeaths: Averted in ''Cat of Many Tails''; while the deaths are plotted on the map, the pattern is irrelevant.
89	* CorruptionOfAMinor: ''The Tragedy of Y''
90	* CouldntFindAPen: In ''The Scarlet Letters'', a dying man uses his own blood to write XY on a wall in an extremely cryptic DyingClue.
91	* CrammingTheCoffin: In ''The Greek Coffin Mystery'', the Queens search a dead man's man coffin for a missing will, and find two bodies inside instead of one.
92	* CreepyCrossdresser: The murderer in ''[[spoiler:The Last Woman is His Life]]'' is one. It is the reveal of him being this (and a DepravedHomosexual) and the victim's reaction that drives him to murder.
93	* DeadMansChest: What appears to have happened to the victim in "The Three Rs" in ''Calendar of Crime''.
94	* DepravedHomosexual: The murderer in ''[[spoiler:The Last Woman in His Life]]''. Also a CreepyCrossdresser. Disturbingly for many modern readers, the novel (and the solution to the mystery) hinges heavily on now discredited ideas regarding the nature and causes of homosexuality.
95	* DerailingLoveInterests: Danay and Lee used this trope in their mystery novels, most blatantly in [[spoiler: ''There Was an Old Woman'']]. In that one, two of the main characters are engaged throughout the whole book, only getting married after Ellery provides a sensible solution. [[spoiler: Of course, Ellery interrupts the wedding to reveal that the fiancé was the true mastermind of the whole murder scheme, playing Iago towards the culprit of the previous solution.]] In a bizarre final-chapter extra twist, [[spoiler: the fiancée, now left behind by both lover and family, decides to change her name and become Nikki Porter, the secretary and love interest of Ellery Queen in his spin-off radio show!]]
96	* DirectLineToTheAuthor: In a foreword to ''The Roman Hat Mystery'', the Fictional "J. J. [=McC.=]" explains that Ellery and Inspector Richard Queen are pseudonyms picked out by the real man who inspired Ellery, and further that the "real" Ellery is married. Subsequent books drop the roman à clef conceit, and Ellery remains a bachelor throughout the series. The reason for the discrepancy is probably that this novel was written for a whodunit contest, and Dannay and Lee rethought some things when they chose to continue the series.
97	* TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed: At one point in ''The Tragedy of Y'', the York family doctor lets amateur detective Drury Lane read the family medical history, specifically all the parts that talk about the positive Wasserman tests. The book never uses the word "syphilis". Not even when Lane gets access to those medical files by proving to the doctor that he already knew the York children had been born with the disease.
98	* DistaffCounterpart: ''Series/MurderSheWrote''
99	* DistinguishedGentlemansPipe: Ellery sometimes smokes one. It appears to be another of his affectations that comes and goes according to his mood.
100	* DrivenToSuicide: Howard van Horn in ''Ten Days' Wonder''.
101	** [[spoiler: Karen Leith]] in ''The Door Between''.
102	* DyingMessage: Many, many variations.
103	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In the earliest titles, Ellery's origins as a Literature/PhiloVance {{expy}} are much more apparent; he wears a pince-nez and is prone to GratuitousFrench.
104	* EurekaMoment: Ellery is prone to these. For example, in ''The Scarlet Letters'' he is watching some wet paint run in the rain when the meaning the victim's DyingClue suddenly becomes apparent to him.
105	* FakedKidnapping
106	* FingerLickingPoison:
107	** ''The Three Widows'' had a victim being slowly poisoned even though everything she ate and drank was carefully screened beforehand. It turned out the would-be killer was her doctor and the poison was on the thermometer with which he took her temperature each day.
108	** In "Man Bites Dog" the murder weapon was a pencil dipped in cyanide; the victim had a habit of licking the points of pencils he was writing with.
109	* FriendOnTheForce: Ellery's father, Inspector Richard Queen.
110	* GenteelInterbellumSetting: The novels started in this period.
111	* GentlemanDetective: Ellery was this is the early novels (being essentially an {{Expy}} of Literature/PhiloVance), with his late mother having been the daughter of a New York society family. However, as the series went on, his character developed and he lost most of his snobbishness (except on intellectual matters) and developed an interest in some decidedly blue collar pastimes such as boxing and baseball.
112	* GoingByTheMatchbook: In ''Halfway House'', Ellery points out that most matchbooks are far too common for one to be incriminating. Then it turns out [[DoubleSubversion that one is]], anyway.
113	* HidingYourHeritage: In ''The Roman Hat Mystery'', a blackmailer has been going after several of the novel's characters. One of them was being threatened with this trope; the character in question had a black ancestor (but appeared Caucasian).
114	* IconicItem: Ellery's got pince-nez glasses in the early books. In the TV series he's always wearing or carrying a Bear Bryant fedora.
115	* ImpostorForgotOneDetail: In ''The Lamp of God'', [[spoiler: The false Alice ignores the photograph of the real Alice's mother which the real Alice had made a huge fuss over as it was only the second one she'd ever seen, tipping Ellery off that she's a phony.]]
116	* InformedFlaw: Drury Lane's deafness.
117	* InWhichATropeIsDescribed: ''The Roman Hat Mystery''
118	* JuryDuty: The radio show had an episode where Ellery and his secretary Nikki both ended up on the same jury, and Ellery ended up solving the case and revealing the true killer who was also in the courtroom.
119	* KangarooCourt: ''The Glass Village''
120	* LeaveBehindAPistol: Ellery does this with the murderer at the end of ''Ten Days' Wonder''.
121	* LetOffByTheDetective: In ''The Finishing Stroke'', Ellery is stumped by the murder for a couple of decades. When he does finally solve the case the killer, who was an older man when he committed the murder, is truly elderly and infirm. Since Ellery doesn't want to see him spend the last few years of his life in prison, he keeps his identity secret.
122	* LightsOffSomebodyDies: Happens during a game of Murder in the Dark in the short story "The Dead Cat" in ''Calendar of Crime''. The fact that the murderer was able to commit the crime in a pitch black room is what clues Ellery in to the solution.
123	* LockedRoomMystery: Several including ''The King is Dead''.
124	** ''The Chinese Orange Mystery'' is a locked room mystery with exceedingly weird clues, including the fact that the murder victim is found with his clothes on ''backwards''.
125	* LostWillAndTestament: ''The Greek Coffin Mystery'' starts when Ellery and his father Inspector Richard Queen are called in to locate the missing will of a wealthy art collector. Ellery narrows down the possible location of the will to a single location: the dead man's coffin. When it is exhumed, however, it contains no will but [[CrammingTheCoffin the surprising addition of a strangled ex-convict]].
126	* MurderByMistake: In ''The Finishing Stroke'', the murderer kills the wrong victim because [[spoiler:he was an identical triplet of the intended target whom the murderer did not know existed]].
127	* MurphysBed: Not the murder method, but in ''The French Powder Mystery'' the body is hidden in a Murphy Bed that was part of a department store window display. When the demonstrator got to "see how easy this is to open?", the corpse popped out.
128	* MyGreatestFailure: In ''Ten Days Wonder'' Ellery [[spoiler: concludes that a son killed his stepmother out of twisted resentment of his sainted father. Only after [[AcquittedTooLate the son's execution]] does he realize that the father committed the murder and framed his son.]] In the fallout he resigns from investigative work and in the next novel ''Cat of Many Tails'' he only reluctantly comes out of retirement to help stop a SerialKiller.
129	* MysteryMagnet: While some of Ellery's cases come to him via his father, it also seems that Ellery cannot travel anywhere without stumbling across a mystery. This even gets {{lampshade\|Hanging}}d in the novella "Mum is the Word" when the chief of police comments that Ellery can't visit Wrightsville without a major crime taking place.
130	* MysteryWriterDetective: The TropeMaker
131	* NeverSuicide: In ''The Greek Coffin Mystery'', the second solution involves a "suicide" not meant to convince the reader.
132	* NotSoFakePropWeapon: In ''There Was an Old Woman'', one man challenges his brother to a pistol duel, so friends replace all the bullets with blanks, but somebody else puts bullets back in the gun before the duel.
133	* PassFail: The "One-Drop Rule" gets blackmailer Monte Field killed in ''The Roman Hat Mystery''.
134	* PhantomThief: Comus in "The Dauphin's Doll" in ''Calendar of Crime''.
135	* {{Ponzi}}: Used in one of the short stories in the collection ''QBI - Queen's Bureau of Investigation''.
136	* SerialKiller: ''Cat of Many Tails''
137	* SerialKillingsSpecificTarget
138	* ShedTheFamilyName: In ''There Was an Old Woman'', Sheila Potts sheds "Potts" because it's tied to her controlling mother and three mad siblings from her mother's first marriage. She takes her [[ItMakesSenseInContext father's maiden name]] of "Brent". [[spoiler: At the end of the novel, she further changes her name to "Nikki Porter", becoming Ellery's secretary.]]
139	* SignificantAnagram:
140	** ''The Fourth Side of the Triangle'' / ''Too Many Suspects'': The victim named her clothing lines after her boyfriends.
141	** ''Ten Days' Wonder'': Salmonia (Mona Lisa) and H. H. Waye (Yahweh)
142	** ''The Blue Movie Murders'': The director used an anagram of his real name.
143	* SpeakNowOrForeverHoldYourPeace: Ellery breaks up two weddings at that line because one of the parties is a murderer. One of them is [[spoiler:''Face to Face'']].
144	* SpinningPaper: Used in the TV series.
145	* TheSummation: A staple of both the novels and the TV series.
146	* TenPacesAndTurn: ''There Was An Old Woman''
147	* ThemeSerialKiller:
148	** In ''Ten Day's Wonder'', the theme was :the Ten Commandments.
149	** ''Double, Double'' used :the children's rhyme Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggarman, Thief.
150	* {{Tontine}}: ''Last Man To Die''.
151	** And "The Inner Circle" in ''Calendar of Crime''.
152	* WhatDidIDoLastNight: In ''Ten Days' Wonder'', Howard Van Horn suffers blackouts. He will wake up days or weeks later with no idea where he is or what he has done in the meantime.

Context Creator / ElleryQueen