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edting · Last edited by edting on Fri Jan 27, 2006 5:04 pm; edited 1 time in total

13. The Chinese Orange Mystery by Ellery Queen

This is one of the earliest (1934) and one of the best and most famous of the Ellery Queen mysteries.

An unremarkable man goes to visit a wealthy stamp collector and is led into a waiting room. Then for the next few minutes, several people walk up and down the hallway. A few minutes after that, the man is found dead in the waiting room. His clothes have been put on backwards. The bookshelves are now facing the wall, the rug is upside down, and the lamps are upside down, standing on their lampshades. The mirrors and pictures have been turned around as well.

And that’s just the first 20 pages or so. It gets better and better. On page 164 there is a “CHALLENGE TO THE READER.” All the clues have been given, it says, for you to solve everything. This must be mischief on the part of the authors, because I can tell you that no normal human being will be able to solve this one, not in a million years. The solution is so complicated that I had to read it three times just to get the gist of what happened.

shaw · Java Man Joined: 04 Aug 2003 Posts: 1025

Since you are older than even I, you must remember the Ellery Queen Mystery television show, starring Jim Hutton. There was always a moment, towards the end, where Ellery would wind up alone in a room or hallway, at which point he would look at the camera and say something like, "At this point I know who killed Mr. Boddy. Have YOU figured it out yet? I'll tell you this, the glass of milk is VERY very important." And there would be a commercial.

I was bored by the show, but I loved that moment, that breaking of the fourth wall.

edting · Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2006 10:09 am Post subject:

Yes, I remember the Jim Hutton TV show. I've seen pirate DVDs of the show on ebay and have been tempted to buy them.

Ellery Queen is like James Bond. He never seems to age and apparently had a career of some 50+ years. In the early works (like this one) the characters are clearly from an earlier age. Women faint at the sight of blood, men wear hats (and refer to women as "doll"), and everyone smokes or uses snuff.