If you think you can help us, or would like something to add. Don't be shy! Pick one of the following categories (by clicking on the icons):

   •      •      •      •  

My attention was caught last month by a post from the hand of Matthew J. Elliott, by his own admission, an award-winning screenwriter, author, voice-over artist, presenter, editor and contributor for RiffTrax from Lancashire, England. His 2008 miniseries The New Adventures of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer starring Stacy Keach was nominated for an Audie Award.

 "I became a mystery writer because of Ellery Queen. Hilary Caine wouldn't exist were it not for Ellery."

The "tongue in cheek" Hilary Caine mysteries are set in "The Golden Age" of 1930s British mysteries. Hilary Caine is a young woman with a unique gift for solving crimes. She is employed by the English tabloid Tittle Tattle Magazine as their private investigator. She solves the crime, they write the story.  

Several important additions to the site!

We'd like to focus on just one page in particular. In 2011 we purchased information from the NFSA Canberra, Australia which led to an update of the page on the Australian restaged radio plays. This page has now been refreshed with several descriptions of the radio plays added and it now even includes some pictures of the Australian Armchair detectives.

The Major Broadcasting Network announced the beginning of "The Adventures of Ellery Queen" as a National broadcast. It was to be heard from 2UE, 4BK-AK and 2KO, 2GZ, and 2NZ beginning Friday, July 16 1954 at 7:30 p.m. In each production a distinguished visitor is invited by Ellery Queen to anticipate the solution when all clues have been collected.  

Above right: Charles Tingwell who plays Ellery

Continue to read here...

When Norman and Irving Pincus first brought The Adventures of Ellery Queen (1950-1951) to the little screen on the old Dumont network, Elliott was cast as Sergeant Velie.

Almost no records are found of this fact. Why? First Sergeant Velie didn't appear in that many episodes but also Elliott was going through hard times as an actor ... Sadly he was not the only actor suffering hardship back then. His biography can attest to these dark times in the entertainment industry...

Born in San Antonio, Texas on July 4. 1907 as Eli (Aleck) Solomon. His parents, married in Russia around 1884, were Rabbi Solomon Zalmanovich Solomon from Lithuania and Abigail aka Bessie Budowlia from Belarus. They had at least seven children.

Aleck/Eli went to the A&M College of Texas. He took an interest in acting and  ...

Continue to read here...

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...