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West 87th Irregular Josh Pachter started a new series. Kind of.

When Josh Pachter began work on Misadventures (2017), he re-read The Tragedy of Errors and got inspired when he found three cases for something Ellery Queen called "The Puzzle Club".

The central concept of the five-story EQ miniseries was that six friends gathered at irregular intervals for a gourmet dinner, but before sitting down to eat one member of the group was ensconced in what was called “the Puzzle Chair,” and the other five presented an invented mystery for the evening’s designated solver to tackle. His idea for a brief puzzle story seemed well suited for the Puzzle Club, so he wrote it up, titled it “A Study in Scarlett!” and it appeared in EQMM’s May/June 2019 issue.

Enjoying the experience Josh set out to write four more Puzzle Club pastiches, and then after they’d all been published in EQMM, intends collecting the original five and his new five in a single volume: The Puzzle Club, by Ellery Queen and Josh Pachter.

Since the first Puzzle Club story’s title is a Sherlock Holmes pun (on A Study in Scarlet), he thought it might be fun to use Holmesian puns for the subsequent stories in the series — and, since the first one puns on a Holmes title that involves a color, I thought it might be extra fun to continue in that vein.

So his second Puzzle Club story, which Janet has already purchased for, hopefully, the January/February 2020 issue ofEQMM, is called “The Adventure of the Red Circles” (punning on “The Adventure of the Red Circle”), and the third, which will also appear in EQMM is called “The Adventure of the Black-and-Blue Carbuncle” (from “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”).Read more here

Small celebration! 20 years online. 20 years of Ellery Queen, a website on deduction! But don't thank me, it's me who should be thanking everyone who has been writing us. Every contact, e-mail or discussion has made this a better website or at least contributed to my motivation to keep updating it ... In this context I'd like to add a special word of thanks to the West 87th Irregulars and EQ family members. I'm sure they've raised a few eyebrows when asked about the smallest of details on everything Ellery Queen.
And last and, most certainly proverbially, not least a shout out to one West 87th Irregular in particular: Dale C. Andrews. What started out as a discussion on a Queen book in a forum (How fitting this anniversary falls just days short of Easter!) ended up in a friendship, several collaborations on this website and elsewhere and me visiting the other side of the pond... I wish to everyone who visits here friendship and much enjoyment!

Above: Three "West 78th Street Irregulars" caught in one frame! From Left to Right: Dale C. Andrews, Mike Nevins and Josh Pachter. (Picture courtesy Josh Pachter)


For this anniversary we are publishing an important discovery on the ghostwritership for the Ellery Queen Jr. novels. In the 60s a pause in the series occurred when James Holding was contracted to continue the series as  Ellery Queen, Jr. The first two of his EQ jr. book featured Gulliver Queen, described as the nephew of famous detective, in the leading role and were issued by Golden Press with their distinctive blue-diamond spine. But as it turns out, both of these mysteries were not in fact Holding's work. The son of Joseph Lawrence Greene (1914-1990) stated that his father, who also wrote the Dig Allen series (1959-1962) for Golden Press, was, in fact, the author of one of the Golden Press books (1961-1962).  We did find a copyright entry for The Mystery of the Merry Magician by Joseph Greene and one for The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim by Paul Newman.  Read more here

Sometimes the smallest splinter of information can provide a surprise! That was the case when I unearthed a small article. It simply said that for  the TV-episode "Confidential Agent" (8-27-52) of The Adventures of Ellery Queen Richard Derr would be a one time replacement for Lee Bowman who was on vacation. This means we have another US actor to include who, very briefly, graced the screen as Ellery Queen! Richard Derr's preferred habitat was the theater but his main body of work can be found in television, movies and theater. ... (click on picture for more)

Barnaby Ross was in many ways a sidekick invented by two clever marketing men. Considered to be among EQ's finest work and true classics of the genre, it starred Drury Lane in four novels of 1932 - 1933. With the fourth contribution to the series the cousins stopped publishing Ross books simply because, whilst taking them as long to write, the sales weren't as good. For the same reason the Drury Lane series was republished under Ellery Queen's own name..

Reprints under the name Barnaby Ross don't happen. Not even in many Eastern countries where the series is regularly reprinted. So we thought...
To our amazement last year Forgotten Books republished The Tragedy of Y under it's original moniker Barnaby Ross! Both in paperback and hardcover without even the slightest of shout outs to the much more known alias.
This deserves some extra attention!

Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings.
Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the quality of the aged text.

In 1930 Fred Dannay married Mary Beck, they stayed together until her death, July 4. 1945 (aged 37). After she died he left Great Neck, Long Island, and moved into that two-family house in Brooklyn with Mary's sister Shirley and husband Murray, and their daughter Joan (b.1939). Fred had purchased the house. Two years later Fred remarried Hilda Wiesenthal (a relative of Simon Wiesenthal), who was the widow of a doctor, Isadore Silverman, who died in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. The newlywed Dannays then bought and moved to a small home in the quiet Larchmont on 29 Byron Lane.

Reproduced here is an article called "2 Mrs. Ellery Queens Figure In Famed Detective's Life" by Madelaine Wilson for The Herald Statesman, Yonkers, New York, published on June 6. 1959.
It provides a different insight into the successful partnership that was Ellery Queen... through the eyes of Hilda "Bill" Dannay.   It's offered on this site as part of "Extra Extra" in the Whodunit section... Click on the hyperlinks to read more ...

Happy New Year to everything Ellery Queen!
Hoping for yet another year of new initiatives both known and unknown ... .

Aya Fukushima (Boon Fukushima) is a Japanese freelance illustrator and textile designer who surprised us with this rendition of famous photograph of Manfred B. Lee and Fred Dannay (Picture courtesy of Aya Fukishima). We've given it a fitting place in our "museum", it'll show up in the "Pastiche section" of this site. Click here ...

On June 15. 1981 Fred Dannay and his wife Rose attended the third Crime Writers' International Congress which was held in Stockholm. The international jury, with Fred in it, chose the unknown Frank Sisk, a 65 year old American journalist, as winner in the short-story competition with "A visit with Montezuma".  Which not only resulted in a publication but also a Saab Turbo. Many detective writers attended.

At the congress they were also given a day trip by ship to Åland on Saturday June 20, 1981. To read more and see several pictures (!) click here ...