nd on the Eighth Day (1964)

It's April 1944 and Ellery Queen has been working for the military making films in Hollywood. Driving through Death Valley on his way home, his car breaks down. Stumbling over a rise in the desert, he encounters an odd man who seems to come from an earlier time, and is welcomed into his community as a sort of prophet. Queen must root out a growing corruption while operating within the limits of an alien world and comes to the realization that evil can invade the most guarded of people's hearts and societies.

Dorothy B. Hughes in Book Week: The most unusual mystery in memory and perhaps in time...so filled with legitimate mystery fiction excitement that it is an edge-of-the-chair, can't-put-it-down reading experience. Ellery Queen takes a wrong turn on the great southwestern desert and finds a hidden valley, populated by a strange religious group. Take it from there yourself, for the book is not one to be divulged in bits and pieces; it is a tremendous whole.

The Old Man of the Mountain

It was the last thing that Ellery Queen ever expected to encounter. He was on his way from Los Angeles to New York. He took a wrong turn. Suddenly there it was, a figure standing on the cliff above him.
It was a man -- an old man dressed in a hooded brown robe. In one hand he carried a crooked staff, in the other a curiously shaped instrument, something like a trumpet. As Ellery got out of the Duesenberg and walked toward him, the old man turned his gaunt profile and jutting beard.
"The Word be with you."
And thus began one of the most curious adventures that has ever befallen Ellery Queen.

Ghost-written by Avram Davidson from a 66 page long Dannay outline, extensively revised both by Dannay and Lee. The result is one of the more  unusual novels bearing the Ellery Queen name, and evidence of Davidson's style can be seen throughout.

A novel like And on the Eighth Day lends itself to more than one interpretation--as detective novel, as religious allegory, as social novel, and as utopian novel. Dannay stated that he conceived this book after reading about the Dead Sea Scrolls and noting their parallels to the Gospels. "Queen's religious themes remind us that popular, escapist fiction can be meaningful while it entertains and his writings merit a revival and serious reassessment" (S.T.Karnick).

Atmosphere and pace are emphasized more than plot and story. The final you will have seen before, but it's a clever, well-hidden variant. The plot in Queen stories always has been paramount and to say the cousins had nothing to do with this book is clearly wrong. I do not comprehend the persistent disbelieve concerning authorship of some Queen-novels. "Ellery Queen" is a partnership and And on the Eighth Day was a three-man-enterprise. Davidson should be given his due credit herein. Dannay's hand in the plot is proved by use of the recurrent Easter theme in several Queen novels. Dannay always paid great attention to the form of his novels and it is this characteristic which betrays the hand of the master....

In 1978 this novel won the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière (International Category).