The Perfect Crime by Ellery Queen, 1942

 

Major characters:

Ellery Queen, detective

Nikki Porter, his secretary

Walter Mathews, young millionaire

John Mathews, his uncle, a stock swindler

Carlotta "Aunty Carlo" Emerson, Walter's maiden aunt with the on/off accent

Togo, her pet chimpanzee

Arthur Rhodes, a lawyer, partner of John

Raymond Garten, rare book collector

Marian, his daughter, fiancée of Walter

Henry Griswold, his librarian

Locale: New York City

Synopsis:

Rich Walter Mathews comes to ask Ellery Queen for his help. His uncle, John Mathews, has swindled many people with oil well stock scams; including Raymond Garten, the father of Walter's fiancée, Marian Garten.

Raymond Garten, now broke, is forced to auction his beloved rare book collection. Altruistic Walter has an idea: He gives Ellery $250k to purchase the collection for him as a third-party, so Raymond will be unaware Walter is the buyer. He plans to give it to Marian as a wedding gift, so that it will stay in the Garten family and Raymond will be unable to refuse it. Ellery buys the lot and moves it to Walter's home; next door to the Mathews home.

No sooner has this been accomplished than John Mathews is found dead in his study. 

Review:

This book is prefaced with "Based on the Columbia Motion Picture Ellery Queen and the Perfect Crime", an ominous admission that it was back-written from the movie - generally a bad sign, and one that the Queen authors (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee) had little to do with writing it. Eye-rolling continued when I find that one of the characters is a chimpanzee who has been taught how to shoot a gun (thought this sort of thing went out with Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue).

However, I was pleasantly surprised to find a respectable, concise plot; in the same vein as Queen's country-titled novels of the same era (Chinese Orange, French Powder, etc). My 1942 Grosset & Dunlap edition has a sketch map of the crime scene in Chapter 6 (p. 75), which is essential if you wish to figure out how the murder occurred, and careful study of the map itself may provide the answer for you.

A rather humorous aside is the conversations in which the investigators speculate 1). does a chimpanzee have fingerprints, and 2). if so, is it possible to take them?

And Four To Go by Rex Stout, 1959

 

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Four novellas:

 Christmas Party:  Archie Goodwin is invited to an office Christmas party. The bartender is dressed as Santa Claus, a guest winds up poisoned, and Santa disappears leaving his outfit behind in the elevator.

 Easter Parade:  An orchid grower's wife is going to display a one-of-a-kind orchid on her outfit at a Fifth Avenue church on Easter Sunday. Nero Wolfe wants to get the orchid, but as his sketchy hireling  "Tabby" reaches for it, the woman falls down dead.

 Fourth of July Picnic:  Nero Wolfe is invited to be one of the speakers at a union picnic. Just as begins his speech, one of the other speakers is found stabbed to death behind the stage.

 Murder in No Joke:  A woman and calls on Nero Wolfe, makes a phone call from his office, and hands the phone to Wolfe just in time for him to hear the woman on the other end of the call killed. Was it real or was it staged? The woman is dead, and another woman who may have a conspirator is found dead also.  

Fer-de-lance by Rex Stout, 1934

 

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No review, cover image only. 

The Case of the Constant Suicides by John Dickson Carr, 1941

 

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No review, cover image only. 

13 at Dinner by Agatha Christie, 1933

 

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Also published as Lord Edgeware Dies

No review, cover image only. 

Murder at Bratton Grange by John Rhode, 1929

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This title was also published as The Davidson Case. It is Dr. Priestley #6.

About the author: John Rhode is one of the pseudonyms used by Cecil John Charles Street. He also wrote as Miles Burton.

Major characters:

• Guy Davidson
• Sir Hector Davidson, his cousin
• Olga Watkins, Sir Hector's secretary
• Frederick Cannon, Sir Hector's butler/chauffeur
• Philip Lowry, Chief Designer
• Tom White, van driver
• Dr. --- Priestley
• Harold Merefield, Priestley's secretary
• Chief Inspector Hanslet, Scotland Yard

Locale: London and Bratton Grange

Synopsis: Sir Hector Davidson is the president of Davidson's, a London manufacturer of laboratory equipment. His cousin, Guy Davidson, was drummed out of the business so Hector could milk all the profits to himself. Hector gives notice to his chief designer, Philip Lowry, because of a patent condition which gave him 30% of the profits while he is employed.

Hector also has a taste for the ladies, making weekend visits to his country house at Bratton Grange with various women. He also makes unwanted advances to his secretary, Olga Watkins, who is the girlfriend of Lowry.

Hector dismisses Lowry early one afternoon, and once he is out of the way, packs up a crate with the valuable patterns of their product. He takes the box on the train to Bratton Grange. He obtains a ride from the station with Tom White, riding in the back of the van, sitting on the box. When the van arrives at Bratton Grange, Hector is found dead inside of a stab wound.

Guy  Davidson enlists the help of Dr. Priestley and his assistant Harold Merefield to investigate. It is a puzzle, Hector was alive at the start of the ride, but dead at the end - inside a closed van. And the box of valuable patterns is missing.

Review: Oh, this book was a lot of fun! I couldn't put this one down. It has a locked-room type puzzle (the van being the locked room), and a small cast of characters. I had a hunch the box was the key to the puzzle, and what I thought happened wasn't quite it. There were several possible explanations considered throughout the book, of course not of these were the solution.

Dr. Priestley is not too enthusiastic about the issue, and mostly stays at home grumbling while his assistant Harold Merefield runs around and does the leg work - in much the same mold as Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. 

The identity of the killer came as a big surprise with a clever workaround in court at the end. This is an excellent, clever, fast-paced book.

 

Murder in the Mews by Helen Reilly, 1931

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Please note there is another book with this title by Agatha Christie (1937), being a collection of four Hercule Poirot stories.

About the author: Helen Reilly (1891 – 1962), was an American mystery writer known for a series of novels featuring Inspector Christopher McKee, head of the fictitious Manhattan Homicide Squad. She wrote mostly under her own  name but also under the pseudonym Kieran Abbey. Two of her daughters, Ursula Curtiss and Mary McMullen, also became published mystery writers.  (Wikipedia)

Major characters:

• Inspector Christopher McKee, "The Scotchman"
• Pete Hogarth, crime writer
• Joan Fergusson, Pete's girlfriend
• Hamilton Knox, the deceased
• George Benchley, Knox's valet
• Laurence "Larry" Tower, business editor of The Star
• Milly Tower, his wife
• Albert "Bertie" Fanning, Milly's brother
• Mrs. Reginald Tower, Larry's mother
• Miss Laura Tower, Larry's sister
• --- Hollister, Miss Laura's fiancé
• Roger Paget, wealthy salt mine owner
• Estelle, Baroness Rumbeau; Roger's sister

Locale: New York City

Synopsis: Inspector Christopher McKee is called to investigate the finding of a body in a Rolls-Royce, left running on the street. He invites his friend, crime writer Pete Hogarth, to come along. The body is that of Hamilton Knox, owner of the Rolls-Royce, dead from a bullet wound.

Knox had last been at the home of his lover, Milly Tower (wife of Laurence "Larry" Tower). McKee and Hogarth go to the home, a small house converted from a stable in a mews between two rows of houses. They find Knox had been shot there, his body placed in the car, and driven to where it was found.

The motive is found to be a box of precious jewels which is now missing.

Review:  This book starts off well with a murder which is quickly investigated. I enjoyed the seat-of-the-pants forensics McKee used (using Hogarth as a prop) to determine bullet trajectories and the finding of the two bullets. The middle portion of the book dragged quite a bit and I did skim along a bit. Towards the end the action picked up as Milly found herself kept a prisoner and being tortured by an evil doctor for information.

It was a bit annoying that the author keeps introducing new characters right up to the end, and even minor walk-ons are named, so keeping track of names is a chore. Some of them pop in without any introduction, just a name appearing in the action with no clue who the person is.

Paget and Baroness are, we know, brother and sister, and somehow related to the Towers, but this is never defined.

I have one other book by this author, Murder on Angler's Island (1945) which I enjoyed much more. It came 14 years later after this one, and it seems her technique had much improved by that time; although the character count was still excessive.