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17. Calamity Town by Ellery Queen

I’m about half way through my boxes of ebay mystery books.

Several Ellery Queen mysteries take place in the fictional town of Wrightsville, somewhere in New England. In this one, three letters written by a man are accidentally found. The first letter states that his wife is very ill. The second states that she has taken a turn for the worse. The last one says that she has sadly died. The only thing is – the man isn’t married yet, and the letters are apparently dated several months into the future.

I was on a winning streak with these Ellery Queen novels, but this one was a disappointment. What I love about these EQ mysteries are their over-the-top characters and their preposterous situations and plots. This one concerns, well...ordinary people in a sleepy little town. It’s worth noting that I wasn’t impressed by the other Wrightsville novel I read (“The Glass Village”) either. The town also figures briefly in other EQ books, usually not with great effect. Still, by the time I reached the last 20 pages or so, where Ellery explains what happened, I was riveted. But it wasn’t quite enough to save this book for me.