Ellery Queen

When Abigail Doorn was wheeled into the operation room at the Dutch Memorial Hospital, her face was strangely blue and bloated. A wire had been tightly wound around her neck. The strongest suspect, because he stood to benefit by the death of this wealthy old woman, was her protege, the famous Dr. Janney. Just before her death he received a strange caller--one whose name he would not divulge. Ellery Queen, having come to the hospital to visit his old...

Tim Corrigan searches New York during a blackout for a killer who hides in the dark High above the sidewalks of Manhattan, Miss Graves is closing up the offices of the Burns Accounting Company when she hears a car backfire. It takes her a moment to realize that there are no cars on the skyscraper's 21st floor. What she heard was a gunshot. But before she has a chance to scream, the lights go out across the Eastern Seaboard. In an instant, New York...

The Queens are intrigued when a grisly murder mars a small town's Christmas It's Christmas in Chicago, and Inspector Richard Queen is enjoying a busman's holiday at a conference on gangland violencebut his son, amateur sleuth Ellery, is bored silly. Until, that is, Ellery reads of an unusual killing in rural Arroyo, West Virginia: A schoolmaster has been found beheaded and crucified. Ellery hustles his father into his roadster and heads east, since...

David Tully hunts for a burglar's killer in order to save his wife It's been 3 days since David Tully has seen his wife, and there's a homicide cop waiting at his front door. Someone has been murdered, but it's not Ruth Tully. The dead man is Crandall Cox. The name is unfamiliar, but he was killed with Tully's gun. At the time of the murder, Tully was hard at work at the state capital. His alibi may be airtight, but his wife's is not. There's a warrant...

A criminal mix-up puts an office drone in the line of fire Jim Morgan can't afford the briefcase. His wife's spending has strangled him with debt, and he's down to his last $20. But the briefcase in the leather shop calls to him. It looks like something an executive would own. It smells like success. When he buys it, he feels a confidence he hasn't felt in years. He tells off the office bully. He talks his way into a raise. The briefcase has made...

With the help of actor Drury Lane, Inspector Thumm chases a stolen manuscript and a man with a rainbow beard Inspector Thumm has never seen such a marvelous beard. It is massive and pointed, a rainbow composed of all the colors of Joseph's biblical coat. He's so distracted by the beard that he hardly notices the man it belongs to: a prospective client with mysterious business. This bearded fellow hands over an envelope containing a million-dollar...

A murdered fashion designer draws Ellery Queen into a tangled family plot Ever since New York was Nieuw Amsterdam, the McKells have been building their fortune. Combining Scottish thrift with American know-how, they built an empire that, by the 1930s, stretched across the globe. No one in the family found more success than Ashton McKell, an entrepreneur who counts his wealth in the hundreds of millions, who smokes twenty cigars a day, and whose only...

The 1-eyed cop Tim Corrigan tears New York apart in search of a vanished beauty. Before the Korean War, Tim Corrigan was the toughest cop in the NYPD. He lost his left eye in battle, but that didn't make him any softer. The eye patch makes it impossible for Corrigan to work undercover, to blend in, to sneak. So he doesn't sneak, and he never whispers. He roars. Corrigan's closest friend is Chuck Baer, a private detective who saved his life more than...

Ellery Queen must solve one mystery per month in a year of chilling crime Every new year, the seven remaining alumni of the first graduating class of Eastern University gather in Manhattan to reminisce. Within that group, there is a secret clique-the Inner Circle-forged around a crooked business arrangement, the profits of which will be collected by the last living member. When three of the Inner Circle die within a year, the remaining men fear for...

The 1-eyed detective Tim Corrigan tears New York apart in search of an assassin Tim Corrigan was the toughest detective in the NYPD before he joined the army, and fighting in Korea didn't make him any softer. He returned with an eye patch and a sidekick: a tough-as-nails GI named Chuck Baer, who picked up a private investigator's license in order to keep an eye on his old foxhole buddy. In a fair fight, these 2 veterans could take down any hoodlum...