There Was an Old Woman by Ellery Queen
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

It was a couple dozen pages in that I knew I was in trouble. This Queen “mystery” is an unfortunate one where it’s clear the author’s knew the ending and then forced the poor constructed story.

There really is no excuse for how bad this is. Something happens very early that the Queen character would never have missed. Of course, that oversight was what the authors had to use to continue the story. Then a series of characters act as if police procedure is determined by the public. Again all to build the story. The worse part is that it’s do damned obvious. How did the duo, known as Ellery Queen, let this happen. Why did an editor not flag it. Sounds like an issue of speeding a contracted book out.

If you can view this more as a fairy tale, which isn’t hard once into the contents, then this book has some very distinct characters. Queen et al of the regular cast are written per usual with the exception that they are otherwise entirely inept in this book.

This really comes down to the horrible , obvious ending that is written as if Queen was a brilliant genius. Certainly this is the worse book I’ve read in the series.

Nevertheless, if all could be ignored, the writing is good…

Bottom line: i don’t recommend this book. 3 out of ten points.

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A Study in Terror by Ellery Queen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a great deal of fun! I love Ellery Queen and having this unorthodox way of presenting a Sherlock Holmes story within a Queen tale made a Queen book all the more fun! There is a bit of awkwardness about it all, but quite a change of pace for a Queen novel.

Apparently there were three authors involved. The two cousins who masquerade as Queen and the another who wrote the Holmes part of the book. The styles are obviously very different, but also well reflect the change of time period and location, as it should.

Seems to me the representation of the Holmes character gallery is extremely well done. The Queen characters are handled as the Queen characters are always.

Setting is far better rendered on the Holmes side. You can well feel the foggy, dreary setting.

I have not seen the film the book is based on, thought that is neither here nor there. The book story stand on it’s own without outside influence of other depictions.

Bottom line: i recommend this book. 7 of 10 points.

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