 he
American Gun Mystery (1933)
In the arena of a vast New York
sports palace, a man lay dead, murdered during the opening scene of a spectacular rodeo. This mystery is about...
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"Remember. I predicted that “The American Gun Mystery” would be a best
seller? Well, it is." --
Lionel Houser, The Indianapolis Times "A humdinger." -- New York Times "For some reason that is quite beyond me, these Ellery Queen stories have a great vogue among mystery fans. They seem to me pompous, over written and boring, and this one is no exception." -- Bruce Catton, The Indianapolis Times "Queen begins spinning the web of the mystery slowly, speeds up to a whirl of action, and slows down for a final, somewhat complicated solution of the crime." -- The Western Maryland Voice of Industrial Labor "... though somewhat over-written, is ingeniously intricate" -- Scribner's Magazine |
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| Above: The first books published sometimes had identical front covers. The spine of the books/dust cover only differ in the publisher's logo. Top row left to right: Both dust cover and hard cover for Stokes, Grosset & Dunlap & the dust cover for Triangle Books edition. Bottom row left to right: three hardcover variations for the Triangle Books edition and finally dustcover & hard cover for World Publishing Company, Tower Books edition (Click on the covers to see the differences) * |
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Evening Star, Washington D.C., "New Books at Random" by Margaret Germond
- Tuesday, June 13. 1933 "Ellery Queen again offers a problem in deduction which might, so far as its personnel and its action is concerned, have propounded itself for a solution back in the pioneer days of Texas or Wyoming, but which actually projected itself into the present day in no less wild and woolly west a location than New York City. Gathered in the great Colosseum of Tony Mars, promoter of various sorts of entertainment, twenty thousand people were yelling themselves hoarse in approval of the usual stunts which constitute a first-class rodeo performance. Included in that immense throng of humanity were Inspector Queen, his son Ellery and the faithful Djuna, to whose urgent pleas that they take him to see the rodeo they had succumbed. Sitting in the box of the great Tony Mars were other guests besides the Queens and Djuna, among whom were Mara Gay, actress, of Hollywood, and Kit Home, adopted daughter of Buck Horne, one-time fancy rider and shooter, who was being given a chance at a comeback, supposedly by the farseeing and box-office knowing Tony. The time arrives for Buck Horne's appearance in the arena and he is heralded by his old and tried friend, Wild Bill Grant, yelling to the multitudes that the great Buck Horne, followed by forty riders, will furnish the biggest stunt ot the rodeo. Buck rides in, with forty-one instead of forty horses and men beating the sawdust into a cloud behind them, shooting simultaneously at a signal from their leader. An instant after the shooting Buck falls from his horse, shot through the heart. Forty-one riders and twenty thousand spectators, and every one of them a suspect! Not an easy task ahead of the Inspector and his inquisitive son, but they tackle it. A week or so later the rodeo resumes its performances, though the mystery of Buck's death is still un solved. On the opening night, with twenty thousand people again on hand and the same group of guests in the box of Tony Mars, in the identical performance in which Buck lost his life, and at the identical spot in the arena, another rider is shot through the heart with the same revolver which killed the first man. The reader is given an opportunity to identify and to convict, the killer. It is a right big dare even for the most avid of mystery story fans." |
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The American Gun Mystery (1933) has a solution that is far fetched even by the standards of the Golden Age. The solution is a cheat, violating Golden Age standards of fair play. The solution is also unusual in that it involves a whole complex, public enterprise behind the crime, one involving both the rodeo and other aspects of show biz. So many Golden Age novels involve one solitary criminal dashing around the bushes of some country house, that it is interesting to see its exact opposite here. The final chapters, however goofy, have a grandeur of conception. However "unfair", they show the wild imagination at work in the Golden Age detective novel. They also show the surrealism that EQ brought to his work. There is also a good deal of interesting logic and deduction in Queen's finale; the whole thing hangs together as a unified and internally logical plot, however implausible. The book also suffers from the fact that the storytelling leading up to the finale is stiff and uninspired. This is a common problem in EQ; many of the early novels have much better solutions than the narrative between the crime and its solution. The business of the disappearing gun is well done by any standards. (Michael E.Grost) |
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Above: Ads from four consecutive New York Times
Book reviews in 1933 indicate that Ellery Queen's The
American Gun Mystery was being reprinted every week in its first month
of publication. |
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In 1933 Dorothy Sayers wrote a review on The American Gun Mystery with her subtitle of “An American Nut Worth Cracking.” She spends her first paragraph quoting seven excesses of Queen’s style. Her first sentence: “Mr. Ellery Queen is determined to be literary or die.” One of her examples: “he was in a chair, his incredible bulk quiescent as poured steel.” “Nevertheless,” she continues, the book has “a rattling good yarn with a well-constructed mystery.” (Joe R. Christopher)
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| America: A Catholic Review of
the Week -
July 22. 1933 "The Ellery Queen mystery stories seem to be going around the world. So far we have had Egyptian, Greek, Dutch, French, and Roman. Now it’s American and 100-per-cent American in 'The American Gun Mystery' (Stokes. $2.00). A rodeo in the new Colosseum in New York just off Broadway; death rides with the rodeo before the eyes of 20,000 spectators and movie-camera men who without any warning film a murder. Your mystery- story addict has a taste that is easily jaded, over-exacting, and highly critical all at once. For such the author sends along a pamphlet that explains enough of his technique to lay down a fair challenge to the reader. Unraveling the plot then becomes a game, the reader’s wit alert at every turn, confident that the author will play fair, give adequate clues to solve the plot which, he promises, has but one solution and one criminal. Without the candid challenge to match wits the story might not be fully satisfactory or convincing to the honest fan who wants his mystery straight." |
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Above left: French magazine Mon Magazine Policier (Revue Moderne)
published in Montreal, Canada, December 1945. It featured La Mort A
Cheval. Above right: Backcover of the Dell pocket book,, Dell Books 4 Published 1943, 2nd edition 1946 with mapback.* |
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The American Gun
Mystery Translations:
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 Other articles on this book (1) Reading Ellery Queen Jon Mathewson (Nov 2013) (2) The Poetry of Ellery Queen Pinakothek (Dec 2, 2008) (3) Mysteries Ahoy! Aiden Brack (May 2019) (4) The Heel of Achilles Ho-Ling (May 14. 2013) (5) My Reader's Block Bev Hankins (November 12. 2021) |
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