The King Is Dead is a 1952 mystery novel by Ellery Queen (the joint pen name of Manfred B. Lee and Fredric Dannay).
"Ellery Queen" (the character) and his father, Inspector Richard Queen of the NYPD, are having a quiet morning at home when the apartment is invaded by a goon squad. The gun-toting goons politely but forcibly take Ellery and Richard to the private island of the Bendigo family. Kane "King" Bendigo is one of the richest men in the world, an arms dealer and manufacturer and owner of a worldwide business empire. And in fact he is more or less king of his private island, which belongs to a European power but is not shown on maps and which King runs without interference from the outside. His brother Abel is his "prime minister" and business manager. His other brother Judah is, by contrast, a hopeless drunk.
Abel informs the Queens that Kane Bendigo has been receiving threatening letters, letters which promise to murder him. Eventually the letters are traced to Judah, who admits it, and says that even though he has been caught he will shoot and kill his brother at the stroke of midnight that very night. As a result, King is left inside his "confidential room", a secure room that has one door and no windows and is essentially a giant safe. Judah is held by Ellery in Judah's own, separate room. Judah tells Ellery where his gun is, and lets Ellery take out all the bullets. Judah then takes back his empty gun, and exactly at midnight, pulls the trigger. Nothing happens because the gun is unloaded.
Except for the fact that King is found shot through the chest in the secure, windowless room that no one entered. How?
Tropes:
- The Ace: Not only is Kane tall and handsome and muscular, he's also a supergenius, and oh by the way a talented athlete who has a shelf full of trophies during his school days. He claims that he once knocked down the heavyweight champion of the world in an exhibition. When he serves in World War I, naturally he wins the Congresional Medal of Honor.
- The Alcoholic: Judah is drunk all the time. Ellery is surprised to find cognac bottles hidden inside a grand piano. He goes exploring and finds bottles of cognac hidden all over the island.
- Arms Dealer: Kane Bendigo is an arms dealer and manufacturer. Part of Judah's Motive Rant is noting how Kane foments conflicts around the world in order to sell his product.
- Asshole Victim: Kane is, personally, an arrogant Jerkass. He destabilizes the world in order to sell arms. He holds a "trial" for an unsatisfactory employee and, it is implied, has the man killed. Ellery eventually discovers that Kane worked behind the scenes to bring Hitler to power in Germany, because he knew it would be good for business.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": The late Bill Bendigo hated both of his first two sons from birth for different reasons, and because he was an asshole he named them "Cain" and "Judas". Both Kane and Judah Bendigo hated being called by their names and changed them when they got older.
- Dramatic Drop: Judah does this when Ellery revals that he's been investigating in Wrightsville, the Bendigo family's hometown.
- Everybody Did It: It turns out that Karla, Judah, and Abel all conspired to shoot King. Judah distracted the attention of the Queens, Karla pulled the trigger, and Abel spirited the gun out of the room, hidden in the only thing Ellery and Richard didn't search—Judah's cognac bottle.
- Everything Sounds Sexier in French: Karla reminisces about how Kane, when he first met her, said "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen" in "schoolboy French." She then notes how in English it sounds "corny" but in French it worked.Karla: There is something about the French language which gives this sort of sentiment a tone of ever-fresh glamour.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Part of The Reveal. Although Kane is the nominal head of the business, it's actually his little brother Abel who's been making all the decisions for years. Left to his own devices, Kane screws everything up.
- Inspector Lestrade: Inspector Richard Queen, a perfectly competent cop who as usual is there to serve as contrast for his son's brilliance. Abel calls himself and Richard "good, solid plug-horses" then admits that Ellery is "a thoroughbred."
- Invisible President: The literary equivalent thereof. Ellery gets a letter with fancy embossing, a handwritten note making a request of "no official status" that he investigate the threats against King Bendigo. The writer says that "your government" would be grateful. The letter is said to come from Washington, and when Ellery calls he's shocked to be connected directly to a man who speaks in "dry, easy tones" and asks Ellery to investigate. It's strongly implied that the letter is from the President, Harry Truman.
- Island Base: Kane bought a remote island that was prepared by a European power as an evacuation point for the government during World War II. Said European power exerts no control over the island and Kane does in fact rule basically as an absolute monarch. He is up to experiments in atomic weaponry.
- Kick the Dog: A teenaged Kane Bendigo literally kicked a cat through a window after he is denied admission to West Point.
- Locked Room Mystery: King Bendigo is shot in an impenetrable sealed room, which only had one door, which was locked. And just to make it more challenging, the man who shot him was in a completely different room. How?
- Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: Ellery leaves the island and goes back to the USA to investigate the Bendigo family's background. He discovers that Kane Bendigo had a different mother than his brothers, that Kane's mother died after giving birth, and that his father decided that the baby was "a natural-born killer" and named him "Cain". (Kane Bendigo changed the spelling when he left for school.)
- Motive Rant: Judah does it in advance, ranting that he must kill his brother because Kane is a selfish, monstrous tyrant and a force for evil in the world.
- Neck Lift: Max, Kane's ape-like personal bodyguard, does this to Judah when Judah admits to sending the letters and announces that he will kill Kane at midnight.
- Theme Naming: There's Abel and Judah, and Ellery is horrified to learn that Kane was actually named Cain before he changed the spelling when he went off to college.
- Title Drop: On the last page, after all has been revealed, King has been murdered for real, and Abel has taken direct control of the Bendigo business empire. Ellery sarcastically says "The king is dead, long live the king." Abel replies that now that he is fully in charge he'll run things in a more benevolent manner than his megalomaniac brother did.
- A True Story in My Universe: As always, the conceit of the Ellery Queen novels was that Ellery Queen was writing about his own career, even though he uses the third person. At one point Ellery is asked about Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which existed in Real Life.
