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[edting]

48. The Tragedy of Y by Barnaby Ross (Ellery Queen)

Between 1932 and 1933, Lee and Dannay published four mysteries under the pen name “Barnaby Ross.” The books featured a detective named Drury Lane. Some years later, the books were reissued as “Ellery Queen” novels and have been known that way ever since.

This is a tough review to write. On the one hand, I did not enjoy reading this book. It’s too long, at 293 pages in tiny font. The characters are supposed to be interesting, but aren’t. They’re the Hatter family, and they’re all a little crazy (Mad Hatters, get it?) The problem is, they don’t seem all that crazy. They’re stock characters given “crazy” traits. You can see the seams like this where the writers patched stuff together. And the Drury Lane character seems just like Ellery Queen – only more boring. He’s a deaf former actor(?) And who came up with the name “Drury?”

Still, after I thought about it for a while, this is a really well-crafted mystery. A murder is committed right in front of a witness. The problem is, the witness is a deaf, dumb, and blind girl who can’t report much. She says later (in Braille) that she felt a face, and smelled vanilla. And the victim is struck with…an old mandolin! This doesn’t seem to make any sense.

I’m interested enough, though, to pick up The Tragedy of Z as my next book.

(By the way, my 1945 copy is labeled “A Wartime Book…produced in full compliance with the government’s regulations for conserving paper and other essential materials. Share this book with someone in uniform.” (!) )

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[shaw]

Drury Lane is a theater in England.

I have an ultra-rare record album : Monty Python live at Drury Lane.

[jeffp]

I didn't include this in my review, but The Invisible Man has a chapter in it titled "In Drury Lane". In that chapter, it says: