Which Way to Die

hich Way to Die? (1967)

They are two brilliant madmen who think killing is fun. A freak of the law has set them free, and now some hidden killer, acting as judge, jury, and executioner, threatens.

Enter Tim Corrigan, assigned to protect the pair against the fatal harvest of their own violence. Very soon, Corrigan takes their place on the deadly spot.

Which way to Die? - cover pocket book edition, Popular Library N° 60-2235, 1967 (60 cents version)

Which way to Die? - cover pocket book edition, Popular Library N° 445-02594-060, 1967 (60 cents version)

Which way to Die? - cover audiobook Blackstone Audio, Inc., read by Traber Burns, June 1. 2015

Which way to Die? - cover MysteriousPress.com/Open Road, September 29, 2015

Ghost-written by Richard Deming.

Nevins described this book as head and shoulders above the earlier Corrigans thanks to a stronger situation, plot and characters than the series had seen so far. On a technicality the New York courts release two young psychos who, in the tradition of Leopold and Loeb, killed a young woman to see if they could get away with it. Soon Captain Tim and his pal from the private sector find themselves the killers’ bodyguards, protecting them against the vengeance threatened by the dead girl’s Mafioso father and her football-hero fiancé. Then, in a seemingly impregnable penthouse hideaway, one of the young sociopaths is murdered. The story’s legal aspects are inexpertly handled, the killer’s identity stands out like W.C. Fields’ nose and the murder gimmick is too easily traceable to its source, but this one is a huge advance on the first four in the sextet.

Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, "Two simultaneous translations of Ellery Queen thriller" in New Crime Novels section - by Ab Visser January 21, 1975

Recently, at exactly the same time, two translations of Ellery Queens Which Way to Die appeared. With this book, Ellery Queen struck out in a new direction in 1967. He switched from the traditional puzzle detective to the semi-hard-boiled thriller, in which two heroes operate: Tim Corrigan, a one-eyed New York Homicide Division Chief, and Chuck Bear, a red-headed private detective. Queen has not quite succeeded in finding the hard tone, but it must be admitted that his new detectives are more men of flesh and blood than the somewhat lumbering Inspector Richard Queen and his son Ellery from the earlier stories.

Ellery Queen is, as we know, the pseudonym of two cousins: Frederick Dannay and Manfred B.Lee. Both were born in 1905, but Lee died in 1971. In Which Way to Die, two psychopathic boys commit the near-perfect murder of a gangster's daughter. It is a "dirty" murder and both the thugs are not sure of their lives even in prison. Therefore, having been released, they are isolated by the police in a private house; the surveillance is assigned to Corrigan and Bear. In vain, as will be seen.
Now, as mentioned above, it just so happens (presumably due to the negligence of the literary agent who holds the rights) that Which Way to Die was published on the same day by two Dutch publishers. ...

Which way to die? Translations:
Dutch/Flemish: De dochter van een gangster
(aka Zeg maar hoe je dood wil gaan)
German: Kommt ein Mörder geflogen...
Italian: Da questa parte si muore
Portuguese: Crime Quase Perfeito
(aka Que Caminho Para A Morte?)

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