We have a double-header pleasure for you today on our regular excursion into the Classic Mysteries vault. Actually, it's two authors working together - and when, as now, those authors are "Ellery Queen," you have a pretty good chance of being unable to put the book down. This time, the book, The Egyptian Cross Mystery, was only Ellery Queen's fifth book - and it's a shocker in many ways, a blood-drenched story of a beheaded and crucified corpse...or shouldn't that be the plural, "corpses"? I prepared an audio review of The Egyptian Cross Mystery several years ago for the Classic Mysteries podcast. Here's a transcript of that review, edited somewhat (mostly for information about the book's availability):
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It was not a case for the fainthearted. On Christmas morning, the schoolmaster in the small town of Arroyo, West Virginia was discovered quite dead, his head cut off and missing and his body crucified. It certainly appeared to be the work of a madman – perhaps it was one of the people who belonged to some sort of Egyptian sun-worshiping cult that lived nearby? Only Ellery Queen realized there had to be more to it than that – a lot more to it. And that first murder turned out to be just the first of the horrifying crimes that Ellery would remember as The Egyptian Cross Mystery.
For newcomers to the Ellery Queen books, you should be aware that Ellery Queen is both the author’s name and the name of his detective character. Ellery Queen – the author – was the pseudonym used by two cousins, Frederick Dannay, who came up with the complex puzzle plots, and Manfred B. Lee, who actually turned Dannay’s outlines into polished books. Ellery Queen, their detective character, was the son of New York City Police Inspector Richard Queen, who plays a supporting role in many of the Queen books. As author, Ellery Queen was one of the most important American writers of traditional detective stories. The late Anthony Boucher, one of the most influential critics of detective fiction, once observed that “Ellery Queen is the American detective story.” Dannay and Lee were scrupulously fair with the reader, particularly in their early books.
That is certainly true of The Egyptian Cross Mystery, their fifth Ellery Queen novel, published in 1932. Ellery Queen is intrigued when he hears about the gruesome murder discovered in Arroyo, West Virginia – the murder of a man, apparently the local schoolmaster, whose body is found hanging from a T-shaped signpost, his head missing. It appears to Ellery that there might be a connection to Egyptian mythology and religion – a belief nurtured by the presence nearby of a sun-worshipping cult. But there are few clues, and the murder remains unsolved.
Months later, however, there is a similar murder, this time at a rich man’s estate on New York’s Long Island. The victim, the estate’s owner, has been murdered in the same horrifying manner as the man in West Virginia: his head has been cut off and the body has been crucified to a T-shaped cross. Ellery Queen gets involved in the investigation and quickly discovers that very little is as it seems. The case grown more complex and more bizarre – and, once again, that cult of sun-worshippers is on hand. But there are plenty of red herrings, and more murders – and plenty of clues for the reader to follow.
And because it is an early Ellery Queen novel, we are treated to the following invitation, just before the capture of the murderer and the final explanation by our detective:
It has been my custom to challenge the reader’s wits at such point in my novels at which the reader is in possession of all facts necessary to a correct solution of the crime or crimes. The Egyptian Cross Mystery is no exception: by the exercise of strict logic and deductions from given data you should now be able not merely to guess, but to prove the identity of the culprit.
So there you are. Will you be able to sort out the reality of what happened – identify the murderer or murderers, find the motives and follow the clues to the ultimate solution? Whether you do or don’t – I certainly didn’t – I think you will enjoy Ellery Queen’s The Egyptian Cross Mystery. For those who think traditional mysteries are too cozy, believe me, there’s nothing cozy about this one, and some of the descriptions of the victims are not easy to read. The violence, though offstage, is horrifying – but necessary to understand in order to solve the case. As with just about all of Ellery Queen’s books, Open Road Media and The Mysterious Press have made it available in a variety of popular ebook formats, as well as print editions and even as an audiobook. In whatever format, I think you'll enjoy it.
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You can listen to the original audio review by clicking here.
Next: The Blind Barber, by John Dickson Carr.
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