Ellery Queen Books In Order

Publication Order of Drury Lane Books

Publication Order of Ellery Queen Detective Books

Publication Order of Ellery Queen Jr. Mystery Books

Publication Order of Tim Corrigan Books

Publication Order of Mike McCall Books

Publication Order of Masterpieces of Mystery Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine Annual Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

“Ellery Queen” is a pseudonym that was created by two cousins, Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee. The fictional detective is popularly known as the American Whodunit celebrity, competing with Nero Wolfe.

Frederic Dannay was born in 1905 and died in 1982, while Manfred was born in 1905 and died in 1971. The cousins are the authors of over 35 detective novels featuring Ellery Queen. The two cousins wrote many books, hundreds of audio scripts and dozens of television movies.

In most books, the author is featured as an amateur sleuth who shares an apartment with his father, Inspector Richard Queen, who is a member of the New York Homicide Squad. In some of the movies and television, Ellery Queen stories did not always capture the original concept of the author.

The Queen novels can be classified as fair-play mystery, especially considering their Golden Age era of the mystery novel. The story is revealed to the reader in a similar way as the detective learns; therefore, the reader is given a fair chance of solving the mystery.

Other mystery writers such as John Dickson Carr referred to the books as “the grandest game in the world.” Early Queen novels mostly feature intricately plotted clues as well as solutions. In The Greek Coffin Mystery, published in 1932, Ellery proposed different solutions that would later become a hallmark of the mystery novels of the Golden Age.

Another major stylistic device used in the books is the listing of the murderer’s attributes. He lists different characteristics, such as the murderer smokes a pipe, the murderer was male, etc. With the use of these attributes, he can analyze different suspects and come up with a single name, often an unlikely one.

In 1938, Ellery Queen joined Hollywood to become a script writer, where he began to change the characters of the novel. In his scripts, he introduced other characters with the theme of romance as well as psychological elements. The novels seemed to move from a mere puzzle to more introspective themes.

Books:

There is a clear change of character as the Ellery Queen stories advance. The early novels seem to be more complex, with unexpected yet fairly foreshadowed twists.

During the post-war era, Ellery drastically changed his stories. He sometimes doubted his abilities and at some point, stops the detective work entirely. Some of the early books include:

The Roman Hat Mystery:

The Roman Hat Mystery features a popular play entitled Gunplay. Shortly after act 2, there is a scream as a light is snapped on, and the corpse of a shady lawyer is discovered in the audience. There are several suspects that Ellery Queen and his father must investigate.

The Greek-Coffin Mystery:

This is the fourth mystery novel of the Ellery Queen, published in 1932. The mystery features an elderly and wealthy Greek art dealer, George Khalkis. He dies and after his funeral, it is discovered that his will has gone missing.

Inspector Richard Queen and his amateur sleuth son are brought into investigate. Ellery suggests that the will was buried in the coffin with the dead man. The coffin is opened, only to reveal two dead men and no will.

Movies and television series:

Most Ellery Queen films take some liberties with the classic plot, but the story emerges fairly unscathed. All the films belong to the distributor, who for many years issued them in truncated form to local televisions stations. Mysteries featured in movies include The Mandarin Mystery and The Crime Nobody Saw Mystery. Many of the films are considered B movies, and the casting and scripts were sometimes less than stellar.