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Come October the next installments in Otto Penzler's "American Mystery Classics" will include Ellery Queen's The American Gun Mystery. The wonderful series (not restricted to Ellery Queen works) has excellent artwork on its covers and could rapidly becoming a collector's item...

To celebrate this announcement we've added some information to the in-depth page concerning the book, including a 1933 review that was originally published in Washington D.C.'s  Evening Star. The review noted: "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 ..."

Continue to read here

On our 22nd Anniversary online we offer some extra information on the French incarnations of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine:

Ellery Queen Mystère Magazine or Mystère Magazine for short was the title by which the magazine was sold in the French Language. Hence prices for France, Switzerland and Belgium were included on the covers. It published 343 issues between 1948 and Oct 1976 by Editions OPTA, Paris which also published Alfred Hitchcock magazine from 1961 until 1975.
Georges Rieben is best known as the founder, in 1972, of the "Le Prix Mystère de la critique", a prize awarded to this day to the best French and foreign detective story. In December 1969, Georges Rieben, together with three friends, was asked to take over from Maurice Renault who was then in charge of Ellery Queen Mystère Magazine. Renault had been seriously ill for several years and the magazine's sales suffered. The three friends were, Luc Geslin (film photographer), Jean-Claude Guilbert (writer, journalist), and Bernard Rapp (television and film). Soon only Luc Geslin was left, who took over as editor, his task mainly consisted of selecting the short stories and having them translated, if necessary. Under Rieben's impulse,  Mystère Magazine revived for a short time. After Daniel Domange, the director of the OPTA publishing house, died in a plane crash in 1971, the company came under poor management and was eventually liquidated in December 1981. By then Mystère Magazine already released its last issue in Oct 1976.
Together with Luc Geslin, Rieben tried to make a new start with Magazine du Mystère (Editions Trega, Toulouse). Without the collaboration of  EQMM, an attempt was made, at least visually, to give the impression that this magazine was a continuation of Mystère Magazine (see 2 pictures in the middle below). It turned out to be in vain, according to Rieben mainly due to a lack of professional distribution service, as this initiative ended after publication of its 12th issue (which were published between Nov/Dec 1976 and 1978).
In December 1981 the first issue of what was to become the second series of Mystère Magazine Ellery Queen (Editions D'Iéna, Paris) was published with Luc Geslin as editor-in-chief and Marc Bourgès-Maunoury as director. George Rieben was part of the editorial team. It is the only known issue of this series... 

We now have the following to look forward to after last month's disappointment when the newly re-discovered TV-episodes vanished from YouTube after only being available for 3-4 weeks.

As part of EQMM's 80th-year anniversary celebration this year (2021), they offer a seasonally appropriate history-laden mystery by the multitalented writing team of Ellery Queen: "The President's Half Disme," originally published in EQMM in February 1947.
It was also part of the 1952 Calendar of Crime short-story collection. Click here to read more on that anthology...

Producers Norman and Irving Pincus were instrumental in bringing the first versions of The Adventures of  Ellery Queen to television. The very first series, on the long-gone Dumont network was broadcast over two seasons in 1950 en 1951 and was allegedly broadcast live. However the ABC network also made recordings of the shows, and it now appears that at least 5 episodes survived...

The 1954 The Adventures of Ellery Queen  was next produced under their Norwin moniker. It was then renamed Mystery is My Business when it reran in 1956. In total 32 episodes were produced. It had long been thought that none of these episodes survived... until recently!

It's been a long time since we have been able to add new available Ellery Queen episodes to this site. The last time new additions were added was about 5-10 years ago and were radio episodes. We can now welcome a sixth surviving episode from the first 1951 series starring Lee Bowman as Ellery Queen and Florenz Ames as Inspector Queen!:

               "The Man Who Killed Cops" (S1E16 - TAEQ)

List of Season 1 episodes
List of Season 2 episodes

And for the first time we also now have episodes from 1954-1956 series, with Hugh Marlowe as Ellery and again Florenz Ames as Richard. These include the following episodes:
 
               "Woman on the Wire" (Ep 8 - MIMB)
               "Close-up of Murder" (Ep 11 -TAEQ)
               "Once a Killer" (Ep 20 - TAEQ)
               "Double Exposure" (Ep 27 - MIMB)

Regrettably we still have none of the Ellery Queen episodes featuring Charlotte Keane, who played Nikki Porter in this series...

List of episodes

The available episodes can be viewed where indicated on the list of episodes... (see links above). Enjoy!

Update Feb 15. the links to the episodes have been removed :-(  The upside still being digital versions exist!

We gladly echo the following exciting announcement!

Otto Penzler Presents
American Mystery Classics Book Club
February Selection:
Ellery Queen's The Dutch Shoe Mystery



The American Mystery Classics Book Club will be meeting on Zoom on February 1st at 6:30 PM EST to discuss Ellery Queen's puzzling tale of murder in the hospital, The Dutch Shoe Mystery! The meeting is free and open to the public, and anyone that's interested in talking about Ellery Queen with a slew of other mystery fans is strongly encouraged to attend! Email charles@penzlerpublishers.com to RSVP.

When Ellery Queen, described by the London Times as “the logical successor to Sherlock Holmes,” is invited by his friend, a doctor, to witness an operation, he accepts the offer in hopes of furthering his capabilities as an amateur detective, but soon ends up testing those same skills. The patient who is about to undergo the delicate procedure is Abagail Doorn, the richest and most famous woman in America; the doctor who will perform it is her protégé, one of the leading surgeons on the East Coast. It will all take place in the main operating theater of the vast hospital that she founded.

Relatives and friends, and even some enemies, wait with bated breath to learn the outcome of the operation. The institution is hushed, the audience seated, the theater ready. The surgeon calls for his distinguished patient, and the doors swing open. A still form covered in a white sheet is wheeled into the theater. But when the sheet is removed, it reveals Ms. Doorn’s corpse, strangled to death with a picture wire. Who among the attendees was ruthless enough to carry out this gruesome operation? It’s up to Ellery Queen—and his most perceptive readers—to uncover the clues and find out.

Joining us for the conversation will be special guest Richard Dannay, the son of Ellery Queen co-creator Frederic Dannay!

Brad Friedman, a Drama, Film studies and English teacher in a Northern California high school is clearly a passionate fan of Ellery Queen books.

On his blog ahsweetmysteryblog his wrote an excellent piece on the second Misadventures collection called "Fun with Celery: The Further Misadventures of Ellery Queen"

"This would make a great holiday gift for the Queen fan in your life! "

Read the article here...

In other news Josh Pachters' fourth Puzzle Club pastiche ("The Five Orange Pipes") is in the new January/February 2021 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine...

JJMcC , stockbroker was a close friend to the Queens and although he had only recently moved to Italy he had met the Queens several times in totally different circumstances. How long ago it now seems since El asked him to write the foreword for his first "opi". JJMcC has been forgotten by most of the Queen followers. In several translations he was totally discarded as just another writer who wrote a 'upbeat' intro to a detective story. At first his labored articulation as oracle to the Ellery Queen novels discouraged neither Ellery's publisher nor the omnipotent gentleman himself. Thanks to JJMcC Ellery's fictionalized memoirs were published! He carried the burden of keeping the Queen's secret with some difficulty. Queen père and fils were major cogs in the wheel of N.Y. City's police machinery during the 20s and 30s. The secret of their real names was one secret they demanded to be kept. A secret never revealed... .

Read more on JJMcC here...

The Further Misadventures of Ellery Queen edited by two West 87th Irregulars Josh Pachter &‎ Dale C. Andrews features another volume of classic pastiches, parodies and homages.

Available now in trade paperback and e-book versions from the publisher, Wildside Press and at Amazon. Including brand-new stories by EQMM editor Janet Hutchings and Crippen & Landru publisher Jeffrey Marks, plus a never-published essay by Ellery Queen and a short-short story by Manfred B. Lee's son Rand B. Lee!

Full list: 

THE ADVENTURE OF THE LOGICAL SUCCESSOR, by J. Randolph Cox
ONCE UPON A CRIME, by Maxwell E. Siegel
Chapter 11 from MURDER IN PASTICHE, by Marion Mainwaring
THE CIRCLE OF INK, by Edward D. Hoch
THE JAPANESE ARMOR MYSTERY, by Mǎ Tiān
THE MAD HATTER’S RIDDLE, by Dale C. Andrews
CHANGE OF SCENE, by Janet Hutchings
THE INDIAN DIAMOND MYSTERY, by Arthur Porges
THE LITHUANIAN ERASER MYSTERY, by Jon L. Breen
THE LITTLE SISTER IN CRIME, by Theodore B. Hertel, Jr.
THE GERMAN COLOGNE MYSTERY, by Jon L. Breen and Josh Pachter
THE POLISH CHICKEN MYSTERY, by Rand B. Lee
E.Q. GRIFFEN’S SECOND CASE, by Josh Pachter
THE MISTAKE ON THE COVER OF EQMM #1, by Arthur Vidro
THE PINK PIG MYSTERY, by Jeffrey Marks
THE MISADVENTURES OF ELLERY QUEEN, by Ellery Queen

Read more on pastiches here...
Order at Wildside Press...
Order at Amazon ...

American Mystery Classics  dedicated to reissuing classic American mystery fiction in new hardcover and paperback editions adds another Ellery Queen reissue to its lists of classics!

Each book has been personally selected by Otto Penzler, whose more than forty years of experience as an editor, critic, publisher, and bookseller brings an unparalleled expertise to the line.

November 3. the series will feature a fourth Ellery Queen story: The Egyptian Cross Mystery.

“Crucifixion on Christmas Day.” That’s what the newspapers report when a small-town schoolteacher is discovered dead, beheaded, and tied to a T-shaped cross on December 25th. It’s a murder bizarre enough to pique Ellery Queen’s interest ― and intriguing enough to lure him to the West Virginia village where it occurred to take a closer look. But when he arrives, Queen is met with too few clues and too little evidence to produce a satisfactory verdict, even for a master sleuth such as himself, and so returns home to New York defeated.

The yuletide gore is a distant memory when the next such murder occurs, identical in every way, but now the location has moved to Long Island. When Ellery Queen learns that the sun-worshipping nudist cult he encountered down south has made the same relocation, it becomes clear that the group and the killings must be intertwined. But then several more crucifixion murders follow, drawing Queen deeper into a tangled and eerie puzzle unlike anything he’s encountered before. It will take all of his powers of deduction to uncover the killer.

Reissued for the first time in decades, The Egyptian Cross Mystery is a “fair play” puzzle in which the readers have all the clues necessary to solve the mystery themselves. It is the fifth of Ellery Queen’s cases, which may be enjoyed in any order.

Read more on this book here...
(Pre-)order at Amazon...

Years pass one at a time. But they do accumulate! How vividly I remember making my first trip across the pond back in 2005, fifteen years ago. Upon entering the Columbia University campus I remember feeling a bit like Tom Hanks' character in "The Terminal" undertaking a long trip for a seemingly trivial hobby or interest... One of the best on-the-fly decisions I ever made!

West 87th Street Irregular Arthur Vidro publishes the thrice yearly detective magazine (Give Me That) Old-Time Detection, several issues of which have been devoted in their entirety to the works of Queen. Arthur was instrumental behind the scenes in the publication of Crippen and Landru's Ellery Queen volumes, The Tragedy of Errors and The Adventure of the Murdered Moths.

Arthur recently suggested that I should (re)publish his report on the Ellery Queen Centenary symposium. It's with great pleasure that I do so. It’s perfect for inclusion on this site!

15 years have passed since this event took place. As things go when looking back on such events, we also can reflect back for a moment on those who aren't here anymore, such as Ed Hoch who passed away in 2008, and Dorothy Salisbury Davis who left us in 2014. Both are mentioned in Arthur's report, below. The latter is featured in his report with an especially funny anecdote (which Arthur describes perfectly).

How I wish I would have known everyone in the room then as well as I do now... A common interest which has led to so much more... . (Continued here...)


Above: Reception afterwards. Photo courtesy of Ted Hertel

Perfect Crime Books released a great new book in June. Unusual Suspects Selected Non-Fiction was written by N.Y. author, acclaimed dramatist and one of the West 87th Street Irregulars Joseph Goodrich. Joe is also the author of Blood Relations: The Selected Letters of Ellery Queen 1947-1950.

Joe's latest book is chock-full of fascinating information and facts about myriad people ranging from Dashiell Hammett to Stephen Sondheim. All are linked, in assorted ways, to the crime genre. Anyone who has met Joe will not be surprised that each story is delivered with an abundance of enthusiasm, which makes this collection of profiles and appreciations very worthwhile. This is particularly so with respect to the offerings on Lucille Fletcher and Ellery Queen.

Ellery Queen turns up in five sections of the book:

A CHALLENGE TO THE READER is about the Jim Hutton's 1975 NBC Ellery Queen TV show;

A KIND OF TRIUMPH is a brief piece about Blood Relations, Joe's collection of letters exchanged between Ellery Queen creators Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay. (Both this discussion and the previous one concerning the Hutton series originally appeared on our website);

ADVENTURES IN RADIOLAND discussest the EQ radio show, and contains a lengthy letter from Manfred B. Lee to EQ's radio agent in which Lee describes the difficulties the show encountered in terms of scheduling and response and related issue (This discussion first appeared in Curtis Evans' tribute book published by Doug Greene of Crippen and Landru);

CONFESSIONS OF A LITERARY SAFECRACKER a piece about adapting Calamity Town for the stage (which first appeared on the EQMM blog);

ON THE ROAD WITH MANFRED B. LEE: setting forth in three parts the articles chronicling Manfred B. Lee's early-1960's lecture notes (the parts first appeared in EQMM).
 
Unusual Suspect is available in paperback and for Kindle at Amazon.  

Many actors played a part in Ellery Queen shows. The first crossover success however came in the form of a radio play. There Nikki Porter got the full attention she so rightly deserved. Seen from a radio making viewpoint a female lead-actress seems practical (due to the "color" of a female voice) and, to me, this must have been equally as important as the romantic possibilities it offered.

The first actress to play Nikki Porter was Marion Shockley. Now all but forgotten. I remember well when I set out searching for information on her career and only found snippets of incoherent information.  Slowly working my way to IMHO an interesting profile on this actor ... Especially if you mix in some of the personal information you'll find Marion's career somewhat typical for a female radio star... "Born Marion Metier Shockley in Kansas City, Missouri to Percy Ambrose Shockley, a lawyer, and Lottie Laura Metier. As graduate of Northeast High School she started majoring in history at the University... " (Continued here ...)