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How could a man have been murdered when he was found alone in his study, a gun in his hand, and the door locked from the inside? It had to be suicide, the police figured, for although there was no suicide note there was a letter proving conclusively that Roland Nelson, over the last several months, was being blackmailed. But to his daughter, Ann, whom he had seen only spasmodically since he had left her mother when Ann was a baby, there were unanswered questions. She was convinced that her father could never have killed himself. Before she found the answers, two people were brutally garroted with a wire, one of them in her own apartment. Could she fins all the answers before the killer silenced her, too?

 
A Room to Die In - cover pocket book edition, Pocket Book N° 50492, July 1965.A Room to Die In - cover pocket book edition, Signet 451 Q6365,  March 4. 1975.The Copper Frame/A Room to die In - cover pocket book edition, Signet Double Mystery 451-AE3120, 1984A Room to Die In - dust cover Kinnell Books edition, U.K., 1987 (dust cover illustration by Mark Foreman)
Death of a Solitary Chess Player - 2005 (cover art by Howard Kistle, cover art made by fan)A Room To Die In - cover audiobook Blackstone Audio, Inc., read by Traber Burns, May 1. 2015A Room To Die In - cover MysteriousPress.com/Open Road (September 22, 2015) Recently the manuscripts of the three Vance Queens were partially recovered. They were restored and made available. This story was published under its original title Death of a Solitary Chess Player as a supplemental volume to the Vance Integral Edition in 2006.
 

Boucher’s review (September 12, 1965) was mixed. “ 'A Room To Die In' . . . at least resembles hardcover Queen novels in presenting a bona-fide puzzle: a locked room, no less, and a clever one. But the writing is flat and the construction surprisingly amateurish.” Mike Nevins found that certainly the motivation for the murder and some of the killer’s subsequent ploys are not too well thought out, but with its superbly constructed puzzle and the tricky but fair clue that leads to its solution, this novel came much closer than the vast majority of the Queen paperbacks to true-blue EQ.

It was ghostwritten by Jack Vance. Vance specialist Richard Chandler asked himself if there were any clues in the novels themselves that gave away their true owner. He starts off by saying that all three stories Vance wrote for Queen are set in California with a very strong sense of place. He goes on finding A Room to Die in another decent mystery with interesting and unusual characters, some of whom remind me somewhat of ones in Strange People, Queer Notions.
The Vancian feel here is most telling in the strong female main character, decidedly not common in mystery fiction of the 1960’s. The dead giveaway though, is the following. Ann is driving and comes across the sign:

PLEASANT VALLEY ESTATES
Top Value for Discriminating Home Buyers
A MARTIN JONES Development

Surely, Vance has inserted a subtle announcement of his two Joe Bain mysteries, The Fox Valley Murders and The Pleasant Grove Murders. These were published in 1966 and 1967.
("The Case of the Missing Vance", Richard Chandler in Cosmopolis N° 37, April 2003)

More recently the manuscripts of the three Vance Queens were partially recovered. They were restored and made available. This story was published under its original title Death of a Solitary Chess Player as a supplemental volume to the Vance Integral Edition in 2006. Evidently one of 400 copies printed. Sources report only 100 copies of this volume were printed which explains why it's a really rare find offered at prices ranging from $45 to $122,5

 
Vance was forbidden by his contract to sign copies of books written under the Ellery Queen pseudonym. As Vance developed a following in his own right (he was an elaborate sci-fi-writer), he did eventually sign the Queen-books as "Jack Vance" or "Ellery Queen" (and initialed "JV"). 
Above: Vance was forbidden by his contract to sign copies of books written under the Ellery Queen pseudonym. As Vance developed a following in his own right (he was an elaborate sci-fi-writer), he did eventually sign the Queen-books as "Jack Vance" or "Ellery Queen" (and initialed "JV").*
 


Een Plaats om te Sterven - dutch cover Prisma-Detective 143Een Plaats om te Sterven - dutch coverMit drei Beinen im Grab - German cover Ullstein bucherUne piece pour mourir - cover French edition Presses De La Cité, 1967Mit drei Beinen im Grab - German cover Kaiser KrimiMit drei Beinen im Grab - German cover Scherz Krimi
Una stanza per morirci - cover Italian edition Mondadori, Nr.905, series 'Il Giallo Mondadori', 1966Una stanza per morirci - cover Italian edition Mondadori, series 'Il Classici del Giallo Mondadori' Nr 739, 1995O Camera In Care Se Poate Muri - cover Romanian edition, 1992Φόνος στο Κλειστό Δωμάτιο - Cover Greek edition, 1975A Room To Die In - cover Japanese edition, Hara Shobo, January 2016

A room to die in Translations:  
Dutch/Flemish: Een plaats om te sterven  
French: Une piece pour mourir  
German:Mit drei Beinen im Grab  
Greek: Φόνος στο Κλειστό Δωμάτιο  
Italian: Una stanza per morirci  
Japanese: チェスプレイヤーの密室  
Romanian: O Camera In Care Se Poate Muri  
 

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