Ellery Queen Detective

The Roman Hat Mystery (1929) is more than just a classic whodunit-it's the landmark debut of the writing team known as Ellery Queen, the pseudonym for cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee. The novel introduces readers to Inspector Richard Queen and his son Ellery, an amateur detective and writer, as they unravel the poisoning of a corrupt lawyer during a packed theater performance. The only clue: a missing top hat, a detail that propels the investigation through a maze of suspects and motives, all set against the backdrop of 1920s New York. What sets this book apart is not just its intricate puzzle and fair-play clues, but the way it heralded a new era in detective fiction. Dannay and Lee's collaboration brought a unique blend of intellectual rigor and narrative innovation, challenging readers to match wits with their detective. Their approach-meticulous plotting, logical deduction, and the famous "Challenge to the Reader"-redefined the genre's standards and expectations. The Roman Hat Mystery launched a bestselling series and laid the foundation for Ellery Queen's enduring legacy. This Warbler Classics edition includes a biographical essay.

"The Roman Hat Mystery" by Ellery Queen is a classic locked-room mystery that will captivate readers with its clever plotting and brilliant detective work. The novel introduces Ellery Queen, a young, sharp-witted amateur detective, who is quickly becoming a household name in the world of crime fiction. Set in New York City, the story begins when a seemingly impossible crime occurs during a public event-at the Roman Theatre. During a crowded theater performance, a murder takes place in full view of the audience, and the victim's body is discovered in a locked room, with no obvious means of entry or exit. What appears to be an open-and-shut case quickly unravels into a complex puzzle as Ellery is called in to investigate. The victim, a well-known and controversial lawyer, has a long list of enemies, and each one seems to have a motive for murder. As Ellery delves deeper into the case, he uncovers a maze of secrets, lies, and hidden connections. The clues, seemingly innocuous at first, point toward a solution that is both ingenious and unexpected. With his keen intellect and methodical approach, Ellery pieces together the puzzle, all while navigating a cast of eccentric characters who each have something to hide. "The Roman Hat Mystery" is a masterclass in the art of detective fiction. Ellery Queen's intricate plot, engaging dialogue, and skillful misdirection make this novel a must-read for fans of classic whodunits. The novel's suspenseful atmosphere and fast-paced narrative will keep readers hooked from the very first page, and the solution to the crime is as surprising as it is satisfying. ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Ellery Queen is the pseudonym of cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, who co-created one of the most celebrated detective characters in mystery fiction. First introduced in 1929, Ellery Queen is a brilliant amateur sleuth known for solving intricate puzzles with logic and intellect. The duo's novels, short stories, and radio plays revolutionized the "fair play" mystery, challenging readers to solve the case alongside the detective. Beyond their books, Dannay and Lee founded Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, a cornerstone of the genre. Their legacy continues to shape modern detective fiction.

A murder in a crowded theater leaves a pack of suspects, but only one clue Despite the dismal Broadway season, Gunplay continues to draw crowds. A gangland spectacle, it's packed to the gills with action, explosions, and gunfire. In fact, Gunplay is so loud that no one notices the killing of Monte Field. In a sold-out theater, Field is found dead partway through the second act, surrounded by empty seats. The police hold the crowd and call for the one man who can untangle this daring murder: Inspector Richard Queen.   With the help of his son Ellery, a bibliophile and novelist whose imagination can solve any crime, the Inspector attacks this seemingly impenetrable mystery. Anyone in the theater could have killed the unscrupulous lawyer, and several had the motive. Only Ellery Queen, in his debut novel, can decipher the clue of the dead man's missing top hat.

A corpse in a department store window offers a gruesome puzzle for Ellery Queen. The windows of French's department store are one of New York's great attractions. Year-round, their displays show off the finest in fashion, art, and home décor, and tourists and locals alike make a point of stopping to see what's on offer. One afternoon, as the board debates a merger upstairs, a salesgirl begins a demonstration in one of the windows, showing off French's new Murphy bed. A crowd gathers to watch the bed lower from the wall after a single touch of a button. But as the bed opens, people run screaming. Out tumbles a woman - crumpled, bloody, and dead. The victim was Mrs. French, wife of the company president, and finding her killer will turn this esteemed store upside down. Only one detective has the soft touch necessary - debonair intellectual Ellery Queen. As Queen and his police inspector father dig into French's secrets, they find their killer is more serious than any window shopper.

Queen visits an operating theater to witness a surgery, but finds a murder instead The son of a police detective, Ellery Queen grew up in a bloody atmosphere. Since he started lending his deductive powers to the New York City homicide squad, he has seen more than his fair share of mangled corpses. Though he is accustomed to gore, the thought of seeing a living person sliced open makes him ill. So when a doctor invites him to sit in on an operation, Queen braces his stomach. As it happens, his stomach is spared, but his brain must go to work.   The patient is Abigail Doorn, a millionairess in a diabetic coma. To prepare her for surgery, the hospital staff has stabilized her blood sugar level and wheeled her to the operating theaterbut just before the first incision, the doctors realize she is dead, strangled while lying unconscious on her gurney. Queen came to the hospital to watch surgeons work, but now it's his time to operate.

In one of his earliest cases, Ellery Queen confronts a murder in blue blood America's master of deduction, Ellery Queen, has made his name by combining dazzling feats of pure reason with the old-fashioned legwork that comes with being the son of a New York cop. Before he became the nation's most famous sleuth, he was just an untested talenta bookworm who thought he might put his genius to work solving crimes. Young Queen made his bones on the Khalkis case.   The scion of a famous New York art-dealing family, Georg Khalkis has spent several years housebound with blindnessa misery he is relieved of when a heart attack knocks him dead on the library floor. After the funeral, his will vanishes, and an exhaustive search of home, churchyard, crypt, and mourners reveals nothing. Baffled, the police turn to a headstrong young genius named Ellery Queen. During this case, Queen develops his deductive methodand swings dramatically between failure and success.

The Queens are intrigued when a grisly murder mars a small town's Christmas It's Christmas in Chicago, and Inspector Richard Queen is enjoying a busman's holiday at a conference on gangland violencebut his son, amateur sleuth Ellery, is bored silly. Until, that is, Ellery reads of an unusual killing in rural Arroyo, West Virginia: A schoolmaster has been found beheaded and crucified. Ellery hustles his father into his roadster and heads east, since there is nothing he'd like better for Christmas than a juicy, gruesome puzzle.   When the Queens arrive in Arroyo, they learn that the victim was an eccentric atheist, but not the sort to make enemies. What initially looks to be the work of a sadistic cult turns out to be something far more sinister. In the months ahead, more victims will turn up all over the worldall killed in the same horrifying manner. It will take several bodies before Queen divines the clue that unlocks the mystery of the Christmas crucifixion.

When a Western star is gunned down at a rodeo, Ellery Queen saddles up Buck Horne has roped thousands of cattle, slugged his way out of dozens of saloons, and shot plenty of men dead in the streetbut always on the backlot. He is a celluloid cowboy, and his career is nearly kaput. The real box office draw is his daughter, Kit, a brawling beauty who can outshoot any rascal the studio has to offer. Desperate for a comeback, Buck joins Wild Bill Grant's traveling rodeo for a show in New York, hoping to impress Hollywood and land one last movie contract. But he has scarcely mounted his horse when he falls to the dirt. It wasn't age that made him slipit was the bullet in his heart.   Watching from the stands are Ellery Queen, debonair sleuth, and his police detective father. They are New Yorkers through and through, but to solve the rodeo killing, the Queens must learn to talk cowboy.

Trapped on a burning mountain, the Queens take refuge with a killer Dashing detective Ellery Queen and his father are driving over the pothole-scarred Arrow Mountain road when they come face to face with a wall of flame. They tear back in the other direction, fire at their fenders, and finally find safety in a clearing, at the home of Dr. Xavier, a renowned surgeon. He is a genial man, but his distracted, mysterious smile conceals dark secrets. Passing through one of the drafty hallways, Ellery's father is startled by a pair of eyes burning in the darknessthe eyes of a monster. Could they be trapped on some kind of mountain of Dr. Moreau?   Dr. Xavier introduces them to the rest of his household, including his wife, brother, and medical assistant. Everyone's welcoming, but they also seem anxious and cagey. When the good doctor is found shot to death in his study, Queen realizes that he and his father have more to fear than a pair of sinister eyes. The Queens may have escaped the forest fire, but they have leapt into a situation that is every bit as hot.

A puzzling publishing murder attracts the eye of Ellery Queen Mandarin Press is a premier publishing house for foreign literature, but to those at the top of this enterprise, there is little more beautiful than a rare stamp. As Donald Kirk, publisher and philatelist, prepares his office for a banquet, an unfamiliar man comes to call. No one recognizes him, but Kirk's staff is used to strange characters visiting their boss, so Kirk's secretary asks him to wait in the anteroom. Within an hour, the mysterious visitor is dead on the floor, head bashed in with a fireplace poker, and everything in the anteroom has been quite literally turned upside down.   The rug is backwards; the furniture is backwards; even the dead man's clothes have been put on front-to-back. As debonair detective Ellery Queen pries into the secrets of Mandarin Press, every clue he finds is topsy-turvy. The great sleuth must tread lightly, for walking backwards is a surefire way to step off a cliff.

On a seaside vacation, Ellery Queen is ensnared in a trio of strange crimes Spanish Cape is a dramatic promontory, its rocky cliffs topped with a picturesque hacienda. This isolated spot belongs to millionaire Walter Godfrey and it should be a peaceful family getawaybut one summer evening, Rosa Godfrey argues with her uncle David as he tries to convince her not to run away with one of their guests, the roguish John Marco. Suddenly, a one-eyed gunman appears out of the twilight. He seems to mistake David for John, and forces the pair to the mainland, where he clubs David on the head and locks Rosa in an empty vacation cottage. The next day, Rosa is rescued by the renowned sleuth Ellery Queen, who had come to the coast for a holiday. For a moment, it seems her luck has changed, but then the universe delivers another crushing blow. John has been found stone dead and stark naked.   This will not be the first working vacation for the unfailingly logical Ellery Queen, but to unravel the mystery of the undressed man, he will have to make sense of what happened on the worst night of Rosa Godfrey's life.

Ellery Queen joins forces with a new partner to investigate a millionaire's murder After the death of his longtime friend Inspector Rummell, Ellery Queen drops in on Rummell's son, a struggling lawyer named Beau. Before their meal is through, Queen and young Rummell are partners in a newly minted company: Ellery Queen, Confidential Investigations. Rummell promises not to burden Queen with any of the work-he only wants to capitalize on the name of the world-famous amateur sleuth. But when they are hired by an eccentric millionaire who refuses to say just why he wants their services, Rummell has no choice but to turn to Queen for help. And when their client dies at sea, they discover that the wealthy old man had countless enemies who might have put him out of his misery-most of them within his own family.

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.   The mystery author is hoping for fodder for a novel, and he senses the corruption that lurks beneath the apple pie façade. He rents a house owned by the town'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 city's rising political star, an upright man who's already boring her. And then there's Lola, the divorced, bohemian black sheep. Together, they make a volatile combination. Once he sees the ugliness in Wrightsville, Queen sits back-waiting for the crime to come to him.

To help an amnesiac, Ellery Queen must destroy the sick man's family Howard Van Horn wakes up in a Bowery flophouse. His knuckles are bruised, his head is bloodied, all his valuables are gone, and he has a strong urge to leap out the window. He has been unconscious for nineteen daysanother in a long line of amnesiac episodes that have destroyed this once-promising sculptor. As he comes to grips with this latest blackout, he realizes something awful. The blood on his clothes suggests that another life has been wrecked.   Van Horn goes to an old friend, amateur sleuth Ellery Queen, who works hand in hand with the New York Police Department. Though Queen has solved countless murders, never before has he been asked to determine whether a crime was committed at all. To get to the root of the sculptor's attacks, Queen forces him to return to Boston, to confront a family secret so dark that Van Horn's mind destroyed itself rather than face it.

New York City is terrorized by a serial killer, and only Ellery Queen can stop the panic In the dog days of August, it is no surprise to see New Yorkers perspire. But this summer, a killer called the Cat gives the city a new reason to sweat. He selects his victims seemingly at random and strangles them, then escapes without leaving a clue. As the death toll climbs, and the press whips the public into horrified frenzy, Gotham teeters on the edge of anarchy.   Ellery Queen, the brilliant amateur sleuth, has gone into retirement when the Cat begins to kill. As his father, a seasoned homicide detective, leads the investigation into the murder, Ellery tries to avoid getting involved. But as the body count rises, he can no longer resist the urge to hunt. The Queens are known for their curiosityand everyone knows how curiosity can affect a cat.

A hermit's mysterious death draws Ellery Queen back to the town he thought he'd left forever Ellery Queen was raised in New York City, but his heart belongs to the village of Wrightsville. An idyllic New England hamlet, it was the site of some of the world-famous detective's most remarkable investigations. After years of solving murder cases in Wrightsville's coziest parlors, Queen was sure the community did not have any further mysteries to offer. But an anonymous letter draws him back to the most dangerous small town in America.   Luke MacCaby's sagging old Victorian mansion sits on the edge of a respectable Wrightsville district as a fading reminder of the area's long-vanished heyday. When the owner-a seemingly impoverished hermit-passes away, the town is shocked to learn that he was a partner in the local dye works and left behind a fortune worth millions. To find MacCaby's killer, Queen must peel away the surface of the place he so dearly loves.

Ellery Queen investigates a murderous dead dog in Hollywood Ellery Queen stands naked by the window, sipping rum from a frosted glass, a corpse at his feet. The deceased is Hollywood, and the cause of death is clear: television. Queen has come to Los Angeles in search of a plot for his latest mystery, but the moribund movie business offers nothing more than nostalgia for better days. He's about to give up and go home when a pretty girl appears and offers a mystery far stranger than anything a filmmaker has ever produced.   The woman's name is Laurel, and her father has been murdered by a dead dog. The canine was sent as a gift-1 in a series of vile, cryptic packages-and it scared her father to death. The deceased pet is the most peculiar murder weapon Queen has ever come across, and unless he's quick, this story will not have a Hollywood ending.

Ellery Queen and his father discover a baffling murder on a private island Ellery Queen and his father are meandering through breakfast when their apartment is invaded. Without making a sound, 2 men appear in the Queens' living room, guns drawn, and proceed to search the place. When they're done, a 3rd man follows: a paunchy little professor-type who happens to be the brother of a king. King Bendigo doesn't rule a country, but his control of the international arms trade has made him one of the richest men in the world. It's not surprising that somebody wants him dead.   Bendigo's brother comes to the Queens to ask them to save the tycoon's life-but they fail. The king is found dead in a hermetically sealed room, a bullet lodged in his heart. The murder is impossible to solve-that is, for anyone but Ellery Queen.

Inspector Richard Queen finally gets a murder case he can call his own When unmarried women get into trouble, A. Burt Finner is waiting at the hospital to save them. This greasy-lipped fat man knows all about babies: how to change them, how to feed them-and how to sell them to the highest bidder. He buys low, getting them from their distressed mothers just a few hours after birth, and sells high to millionaires who are unable to have children of their own. When one of these infants dies just a few months after its sale, the new family is shocked by the tragedy. Only the newborn's nurse recognizes the death as murder.   The nurse reaches out to Inspector Richard Queen, the recently retired father of the legendary amateur sleuth Ellery. Given that his son is out of town, the inspector leaps at a chance to solve this chilling mystery on his own-only to find himself falling head over heels for the baby's caretaker.

A series of cryptic notes announce a death in a bizarre wealthy family. York Square is a tidy private garden surrounded by 4 matching castles, each inhabited by a different branch of the York family. There's Robert, commanding and icy; Myra, gentle and ill; Emily, who would prefer to live in a cottage; and Percival, who has many personal secrets. Watching them all is the gardener, Walt, who sees more than any of them realize. When an anonymous scribe starts sending him letters of praise, Walt is happier than he's ever been. But when a strange card marked with the letter J heralds the death of Robert, the happy garden begins to wilt. Unlocking the puzzle of the bizarre notes falls to the legendary Ellery Queen. He finds that the Yorks are locked in a ghoulish bargain - one that can only be escaped by death.

While stranded in the desert, Ellery Queen stumbles across a religious cult It's 1943, the war is raging, and sleuthing scribe Ellery Queen wants to do his bit. After a tortuous cross-country drive, he takes a job writing scripts for a Hollywood propaganda housetwelve hours a day of hack work that quickly turns his mind to jelly. After a few weeks, he is so worn down that he can type nothing but gibberish, and he decides to drive home. The trouble starts as soon as he reaches the desert. His ancient roadster breaks down on the edge of Death Valley. Wandering in search of help, he is saved by a man known as the Teacher, who takes him to an oasis called Quenan. Here, Queen finds a bizarre, reclusive cult that seems to have come straight out of the ancient past. A murder has been committed in the desert, and the Quenanites plan on delivering some Old Testament justice. Queen is just the detective they've been waiting for.

A murdered fashion designer draws Ellery Queen into a tangled family plot Ever since New York was Nieuw Amsterdam, the McKells have been building their fortune. Combining Scottish thrift with American know-how, they built an empire that, by the 1930s, stretched across the globe. No one in the family found more success than Ashton McKell, an entrepreneur who counts his wealth in the hundreds of millions, who smokes twenty cigars a day, and whose only problem is his son Dane, an adventurous soul who shocks his father by giving up business for the disgraceful pursuit of writing. Despite their differences, Dane loves his father. He is shocked when he learns the old man is having an affair-and thunderstruck when Ashton is accused of murder.   When his father's mistress is found dead, Dane will do anything to free Ashton. And no detective is more suited to this puzzling case of blackmail, lust, and greed than the singular Ellery Queen.

A lost Sherlock Holmes manuscript draws Ellery Queen into a classic case Ellery Queen is struggling over his latest book when a friend brings him a mystery. It is a journal, written by a Victorian doctor, of reports on the remarkable adventures of his close friend, a brilliant detective named Sherlock Holmes. Queen's surprise turns to amazement as he turns its pages and discovers the lost story of Sherlock Holmes's greatest case: the pursuit of Jack the Ripper. From the brothels and back alleys of fog-choked Whitechapel to the manor of one of England's greatest families, Holmes and Dr. Watson chase history's most fearsome killer. But it will take the brilliance of Ellery Queen to solve the case once and for all.   Based on the Sherlock Holmes film A Study in Terror, this collaboration between two of the world's greatest detectives is one of the most original mystery novels of all time.

Inspector Richard Queen and his new wife engage in a manor house mystery Ellery Queen is vacationing in Istanbul when he learns that his aging father, the retired police inspector Richard Queen, is getting married. The world-famous sleuth rushes home to congratulate the happy couple and enjoy the unique experience of giving his father away to the bride. The honeymoon over, Richard and his new wife return home to find an envelope containing a $100 bill and half of a $1,000 bill-a down payment for one of the most puzzling cases the Queen men will ever encounter.   Accompanying the money is a letter summoning Inspector Queen and his spouse to a peculiar vacation in the wilds of New York. Also invited are a con man, a country doctor, a charitable spinster, and a few other disreputable characters who have been assembled for a weekend of murder and mystery they will never forget.

Ellery Queen leaps into action when a jet-setter is murdered in Wrightsville From New Year's in Málaga to Christmas in Hawaii, John Levering Benedict III-or Johnny-B, as everyone calls him-is the crown prince of the jet set. He has 3 ex-wives, a limitless fortune, and more frequent flier miles than he can count. When Johnny-B tires of life in the sky, he sneaks off to a quiet corner of New England called Wrightsville, where he has purchased a cozy little hideaway. This 2nd home draws him to Ellery Queen-and soon leads Johnny-B to his unfortunate demise.   When the wealthy globetrotter invites the great detective to spend a weekend in Wrightsville, the site of Ellery's most legendary triumphs, he also invites his 3 ex-wives. After announcing that he is amending his will for the benefit of an unnamed lover, Johnny-B is murdered, and it falls to Ellery Queen to name the woman who brought this shooting star back down to earth.

Ellery Queen investigates a mobster whose bizarre death is marked by the number 9 Nino Importuna has a soft face, but when he smiles, it's terrifying. His Central Park penthouse is lavish, but it was bought with the blood of his enemies. His criminal empire controls mining, electronics, and food-legitimate corporations that he runs with a murderer's touch. When he catches one of his capos stealing from him, Importuna could either kill the man or send him to prison. Instead, he makes a simple demand: He wants the thief's daughter to be his wife.   On their 5th wedding anniversary, Importuna signs his fortune over to his young bride. Soon after, the 9-fingered mobster is killed by 9 blows to the head and Ellery Queen receives a 9-letter note that holds the key to the homicide. In the legendary detective's final case, 9 is the magic number.

Ellery Queen investigates the death of a chrysanthemum king, as well as fourteen other mysteries When Godfrey Mumford retired to focus on his chrysanthemums, he was worth a little over $5 million. A decade later, his family gathered for his birthday, he delivers shocking news: Thanks to poor investments on behalf of his financial manager, every penny is gone. The house is mortgaged, the stocks are sold-the only valuable item remaining is a priceless chrysanthemum pendant that once belonged to the emperor of Japan. It is Mumford's prized possession, and it will be his doom. Soon after Mumford is paralyzed by a stroke, he is found murdered. The bizarre death catches the eye of world-famous detective Ellery Queen, who will unravel the mystery of this novella, Mum's the Word, with the same elegance that he brings to each of the stories in this marvelous collection.

Three novellas and two short stories starring the ever-ingenious Ellery Queen The amateur theater company of Wrightsville is dying a slow and painful death. Every production is worse than the last, and the backers are about to pull the plug when the director reaches for his ace in the hole: the always-reliable production TheDeath of Don Juan. For the lead, he digs up faded Broadway star Foster Benedict, whose name is enough to sell out the run. But on opening night, Benedict makes a hash of the first act, and doesn't show up for the second. When he's found in his dressing room with a knife buried in his back, it's clear that the libertine's death has come a bit too soon. World-famous detective Ellery Queen is in the audience, and in this novella-as well as in the other stories collected in Queens Full-he proves that Don Juan doesn't have a monopoly on adventure.

A novella and eight stories starring America's most clever detective Is it possible for a man to lift himself off the ground by his shoelaces and fly away? Can a water buffalo transform itself into a little boy? What is science to make of a dead man climbing out of his coffin, escaping his tomb . . . and breaking into song? Such incidents seem impossible, but stranger things have happened at the home of old Sylvester Mayhew. When Ellery Queen, the world-famous amateur detective, is called to Mayhew's ramshackle old mansion, he expects to be investigating an ordinary hoax. Instead, he finds murder.   The novella The Lamp of God is vintage Ellery Queen-puzzling, atmospheric, and utterly delightful. Paired with eight short stories, including "Man Bites Dog" and "Long Shot," it is simply irresistible.

In eleven ripping stories, the mystery genre's greatest sleuth shows his chops For Ellery Queen, there is no puzzle that reason cannot solve. In his time, he has faced down killers, thugs, and thieves, protected only by the might of his brainand the odd bit of timely intervention by his father, a burly New York police inspector. But when a university professor asks Queen to teach a class, the detective finds there are people whom reason cannot touch: college students.   Queen's adventure on campus is only the first of this incomparable collection of short mysteries. In these pages, he tangles with a violent book thief, an assassin who targets acrobats, and New York's only cleanly shaven bearded lady. Criminals everywhere fear him, whether they work in mansions or back alleys. No mystery is too difficult for the man with the golden brain.