he Devil to Pay (1938)

Queen is King when it comes to air-tight mysteries that combine in his inimitable and cunning way those elements of ingenuity, surprise, and original setting that make possible deductive solutions that are always fair to the reader and strictly in accordance with the science of streamlined murder. This, the fourteenth Queen to be introduced to America's largest book-buying public, presents a blonde and exotic actress, Winni Moon, and her scented chimpanzee; a murder which became a managing editor's dream; Pink, an athlete from Flatbush, Brooklyn; Solly Spaeth, an unethical financier from New York. And Queen is literally King in The Devil to Pay, when he masquerades as Hilary "Scoop" King.

The Devil to Pay (1938), marks the detective's first full-length adventure set against the glamorous backdrop of Hollywood. Combining the familiar Queen ingredients of intricate deduction, colorful characters, and surprising solutions with satire on the motion-picture industry, the novel presents a lighter, more fast-paced mystery than many of its predecessors. While critics generally agreed that it lacked the grim atmosphere and intellectual rigor of Queen's earlier classics, it remained an entertaining and highly readable detective story that demonstrated the authors' continuing willingness to experiment with setting and characterization.

The story begins with Ellery Queen arriving in Hollywood to work as a mystery writer for the movies. Ironically, his new employer, the elusive studio executive Mr. Butcher, proves almost impossible to meet, leaving Ellery with an impressive but completely empty office and nothing to do. Before his screenwriting career can begin, however, a sensational murder captures the headlines. Wealthy financier Solomon ("Solly") Spaeth is found murdered under bizarre circumstances, and Ellery soon abandons Hollywood fiction for a very real investigation. Assuming the identity of newspaper reporter Hilary "Scoop" King, he infiltrates the journalistic world to investigate the crime from within, a disguise that allows him to move freely among reporters, police officers, and suspects.

The investigation introduces a typically eclectic cast of characters. Among them are the glamorous but unpleasant blonde actress Winni Moon, who constantly parades her perfumed pet chimpanzee on a pink ribbon; Pink, the athletic major-domo from Flatbush, Brooklyn; the wealthy but unscrupulous financier Solly Spaeth; the aristocratic Virginian sportsman Jardin; Austrian-born Ruhig; Walter Spaeth from Chicago; and the spirited heroine Valerie. The cosmopolitan backgrounds of nearly every character emphasize Hollywood as America's great melting pot, a city populated largely by outsiders rather than native Californians (Margaret Germond).

Ellery quickly concludes that the police have arrested the wrong suspect, despite their apparently convincing evidence. Employing his characteristic powers of observation and deduction, he gradually uncovers the hidden relationships and motives surrounding Spaeth's death. The murder itself is among the novel's more unusual constructions, involving a bizarre combination of sword, arrow, molasses, cyanide, and carefully staged evidence. As in many Queen novels, seemingly insignificant physical clues ultimately reveal the truth, although several reviewers questioned whether some of Ellery's deductions were sufficiently justified. His interpretation of evidence such as a pair of binoculars near the crime scene struck some critics as more intuitive than logically inevitable, and his willingness to eavesdrop using a Dictaphone raised ethical objections from reviewers.

Unlike the darker, more claustrophobic mysteries that preceded it, The Devil to Pay places considerable emphasis on Hollywood atmosphere. Queen peppers the novel with observations about movie studios, newspaper offices, publicity, celebrity culture, and the artificial glamour of Southern California. The romance between Ellery and Valerie, established in the opening chapters, occupies more narrative space than was customary in the earlier novels and was widely considered one of the book's strongest features. Indeed, some commentators regarded the opening section, with its introduction to Hollywood life and romantic subplot—as more successful than the detective puzzle itself ( Nevins).

The novel also represents a subtle departure in tone. It was Ellery Queen's first Hollywood novel and one of the earliest to contain faint political overtones. Although the mystery remains cleverly constructed, some critics believed it never develops into one of the series' truly memorable detective problems. The solution depends less upon the elaborate chain of airtight deductions found in classics such as The Greek Coffin Mystery and more upon unexpected revelations. Nevins observed that one of the central clue ideas involving men's camel-hair coats would later receive a more logical treatment in the short story "Mind Over Matter" (1939), suggesting that the concept was stronger than its execution in the novel itself (Nevins).

Critical reception reflected these mixed impressions. The New York Sun praised the novel as "lively, straightforward and quick with interest," calling it another welcome Ellery Queen success. The Brooklyn Eagle admired the entertaining pace, colorful local flavor, and engaging cast, although it felt the novel lacked the chilling quality of earlier Queen mysteries and relied too heavily on producing an unexpected culprit. Margaret Germond, writing in The Evening Star, complimented the convincing Hollywood setting, the generous supply of mysteries, romance, and deception, while noting that Ellery himself remained an appealing protagonist despite his altered appearance and manner. British critic Torquemada considered the novel further evidence of Ellery Queen's remarkable growth as a stylist, arguing that the cousins had matured from writers of ingenious puzzles into accomplished novelists capable of telling sympathetic, well-written stories.

Not all reviewers were equally enthusiastic. Dr. Watson Jr., in Sydney's Daily Telegraph, humorously observed that the novel's most memorable feature was Ellery's temporary beard, grown solely so he could later shave it off as part of a disguise. He argued that this odd detail made the famously cerebral detective seem almost human for the first time. Although he criticized what he regarded as implausible deductions and questionable investigative methods, he nevertheless admitted enjoying the novel and applauded Queen for selecting an unexpected type of murderer rarely used in detective fiction.

The title itself refers to the English idiom "the devil to pay," meaning serious trouble resulting from one's actions or an unpleasant reckoning that must eventually come. The phrase is said to refer to the devil, a seam which was difficult to reach and which needed a lot of tar to caulk, or pay. The latter word is a well-attested usage on board ship, first recorded in the seventeenth century, but devil as a name for a ship’s seam is less well-known, and there’s suspicious disagreement among sources as to which seam is meant.
The full expression given in many books is “there’s the devil to pay and only half a bucket of pitch”, or “there’s the devil to pay and no pitch hot”. But there’s no evidence that the expression had a nautical origin, though it was probably taken up on board ship once it had become something of a cliché, based on the existing shipboard meaning of pay. Although later associated with nautical terminology, linguistic research suggests the expression more likely derives from the idea of paying one's inevitable debt to the Devil following a Faustian bargain. Jonathan Swift was already using the phrase in this figurative sense in 1738, the same year the novel appeared: “I must be with my Wife on Tuesday, or there will be the Devil and all to pay”(Michael Quinion).

Although The Devil to Pay is generally not ranked among Ellery Queen's greatest detective novels, it occupies an important place in the evolution of the series. It successfully broadens Ellery's world beyond New York, introduces Hollywood as an entertaining new setting, experiments with disguise and romance, and demonstrates the authors' willingness to balance classic puzzle plotting with adventure and satire. The result is a lively, accessible mystery whose colorful atmosphere and memorable characters often overshadow its less rigorous detective problem, making it an enjoyable if somewhat transitional entry in the Queen canon.