When Barney Street, the fixer, was in Holland in World War II, his life had been saved by a German soldier.
Now Barney is dead and his two million dollar estate is left entirely to the soldier who saved him, Milo Hacha. But that fortune comes with a death sentence, for Barney’s widow, Estelle, won’t rest until she gets back everything that is rightfully hers.
She sends Steve Longacre, once one of Barney’s boys, to Europe to find Hacha, trailing him from Holland to Switzerland, to Vienna, and finally to Prague. Longacre has Hacha on the run, fleeing love, money, and a velvet-lined coffin …
This was cold-blooded murder!
The Syndicate—led by gangster Larry Cutter—is trying to take over Iroquois. They want the town, mayor, and police chief in their pocket. So they kill chief Andy Saxon and one of his top men. Then they move in to clean up. But they hadn’t reckoned on the chief’s son, Lieutenant Ted Saxon.
And to stop him, they will have to frame him with his own father’s murder!
Suspended from the force, facing trial, the whole town against him, how could Ted hope to beat Cutter’s hands?
“Ellery Queen is the American detective story.”—Anthony Boucher, author of Nine Times Nine
Disc jockey Tutter King has it made. Every time he spins a platter on King’s Session, gold comes out: TV earnings, returns on his secret holdings in recording companies—the old payola that some bright young men think only their rightful due.
Tutter is a gay young man-around-town who has the world dancing to his tune. He is also involved in some hanky-panky with his pretty blond assistant, Lola Arkwright.
And then the roof starts to cave in: Senate investigating committees; the angry emergence of the wife who Lola never knew existed; the canceling of his network contract. Poor Tutter, it looks like he is going to lose everything—even his life!
“Ellery Queen is the American detective story.”—Anthony Boucher, author of Nine Times Nine
There is an epidemic of death in the town. Lila Connor, neighborhood flirt and sex goddess, lay dead in her home, victim of an ill-placed letter opener. Larry Connor, successful accountant and distraught husband, lay dead in his office, slain by the giant Mickey Finn. And at Shady Acres, Nancy Howell is crazy wondering who killed Lila and Larry. Is a killer even now hidden in Shady Acres, waiting for a chance to slay again?
“Ellery Queen is the American detective story.”—Anthony Boucher, author of Nine Times Nine
In this third Drury Lane novel, the elderly detective is aided by Patience Thumm in the investigation of the mysterious death of a corrupt state senator. Senator Fawcett, a man with many enemies, is found stabbed to death in his study. Patience and her father, Inspector Thumm, try to unravel the web of circumstantial evidence that has enmeshed an innocent man. Patience refuses to be beaten by a lack of evidence and, with the help of Drury Lane, finally stops an execution and brings the true criminal to justice.
The co-ed missing from Tisquanto State is the daughter of Governor Sam Holland’s rival for reelection—and best friend. But she is more than that. She is Laura Thornton, a human being—somehow the pawn and victim of angry student upheavals not even the governor understands …
Who is behind the terror found a focus in Laura’s disappearance? Who is inciting Tisquanto’s protests and riots—a madcap prankster, an earnest reformer … or a conspiracy sworn to the college’s destruction?
It is a case for Mike McCall, the governor’s special assistant, a two-fisted troubleshooter who finds his crimes in the crises of modern America … Mike McCall, who finds on Tisquanto’s campus not only the raging hatreds of rebelling youth—but murder!
“Ellery Queen is the American detective story.”—Anthony Boucher, author of Nine Times Nine
Blue film and blood-red murder!
All Hollywood producer Ben Sloane had wanted was to find Sol Dahlman, the mysterious film genius who had made The Wild Nymph—and now Sloane is dead. “Go up to Rockview,” the governor tells Mike McCall, “and get me the killer!”
But isn’t quite that easy. The Mann Photo Service, long rumored to be a center of the blue movie industry, is torn by a strike, and nobody is talking to strangers—not Xavier Mann, not Mayor Jordan, not beautiful April Evans, who refuses even to tell who she is or why she, too, is investigating the murder.
Then, just to make the job a little harder, Cynthia Rhodes and her women’s liberation raiders hit town—and a man named Carry Tanner decides McCall has lived too long …
“Ellery Queen is the American detective story.”—Anthony Boucher, author of Nine Times Nine
John Vallancourt, the cool, calm diplomat, is worried stiff. A dear friend is dead and his daughter Nancy is missing. John fears the worst—and the worst is Nancy’s sweetheart Keith Rollins. Keith is the prime suspect in the case and he is running scared, dragging Nancy into danger with him. If Keith is a murderer, John is certain of one thing: he has to catch Keith before the cops do, or he might find himself with one very dead daughter!
“Ellery Queen is the American detective story.”—Anthony Boucher, author of Nine Times Nine
Ellery Queen challenges you to solve these clues to death. A thin envelope—worth a man’s life. A shattered display case—whose stolen contents a thief replaced with a strange manuscript. The murder symbol: 3HS wM … the queer cipher found to be an old mark of death. These are but a few of the baffling signs Drury Lane follows down a path of deception and murder to one of the most startling climaxes in mystery fiction.
Where is Harlan James?
He is the indicted, bail-jumping leader of Banbury’s militant Black Hearts who has gone underground … but whose rage, still heard on tape, is edging the city towards interracial terror.
Harlan James calls for violence—for black protests, demonstrations, drastic political action against the city’s white leaders.
But did he also call for—or commit—murder?
It is a top priority job for Mike McCall, a new breed of crime-fighter, whose cases plunge him into the crises of modern America. When a prominent white official is shot to death, McCall must find the killer—or face open racial warfare!
Some bizarre things have been happening to the eccentric Hatter family. First, the body of York Hatter is recovered from the ocean. But he didn’t drown. He died of poison. Next, another poisoning occurs in the Hatters’ old mansion in New York’s Greenwich Village. This time the police have a witness. But what a witness! She is a blind, deaf mute. Naturally the authorities call in Drury Lane—retired Shakespearean actor, matinee idol, master of disguise, and amateur sleuth.
In New York City in the early 1930s, a man is poisoned on a crowded streetcar during rush hour. Everyone sees Longstreet die—but no one sees the killer. Inspector Thumm’s few clues all lead up a blind alley. He finally seeks the aid of Drury Lane—retired Shakespearean actor, master of disguise, and amateur sleuth. Seated amid the splendor of the vast medieval halls of his castle on the Hudson, Drury Lane hears the story from the inspector. He knows who the murderer is right away, but he refuses to reveal his identity until he has sufficient evidence for the police to arrest him.
