Halfway House

"Halfway House" by Ellery Queen, published by Signet. Inside a run-down shack on the banks of the Delaware River, married Philadelphia door-to-door salesman Joe Wilson lies dying in a cheap, blood-spattered suit, stabbed through the heart by an assailant he describes with his last breath as a mysterious veiled woman. So begins master detective Ellery Queen's strangest case ever. For Joe Wilson is not one man, but two, each married secretly to a different wife - and in his other life, as New York millionaire Joseph Kent Gimball, he has just changed the beneficiary of a million-dollar life insurance policy. With painstaking brilliance Ellery Queen sifts through a plethora of clues to solve the riddle of the Halfway House murder, beginning with the most important question of all: Whom did the murderer think she was killing, impoverished Wilson or millionaire Gimball? And why?Review*‘Ellery Queen is the American detective story’ – Anthony Boucher, ‘A new Ellery Queen book has always been something to look forward to for many years now’ – Agatha Christie, ‘He has done far more for the detective story than any other two men put together’ – Margery Allingham, ‘They have raised exactitude and efficiency to the degree of brilliance, and fair play to the point of turpitude. In their group there is no one to touch them’ – Ngaio Marsh, ‘I am grateful for the opportunity of adding my name to the long list of those who have so much admired and enjoyed Ellery Queen’s writings’ – Freeman Wills CroftsAbout the AuthorEllery Queen was both a famous fictional detective and the pen name of two cousins born in Brooklyn in 1905. Created by Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay as an entry in a mystery-writing contest, Ellery Queen is regarded by many as the definitive American whodunit celebrity. When their first novel, The Roman Hat Mystery (1929), became an immediate success, the cousins gave up their business careers and took to writing dozens of novels, hundreds of radio scripts and countless short stories about the gentleman detective and writer who shared an apartment on West 87th Street with his father, Inspector Queen of the NYPD. Dannay was said to have largely produced detailed outlines of the plots, clues and characters while Lee did most of the writing. As the success of Ellery Queen grew, the character's legacy continued through radio, television and film. In 1941, the cousins founded Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Edited by Queen for more than forty years, the periodical is still considered one of the most influential crime fiction magazines in American history. Additionally, Queen edited a number of collections and anthologies, and his critical writings are the major works on the detective short story. Under their collective pseudonym, the cousins were given several Edgar awards by the Mystery Writers of America, including the 1960 Grand Master Award. Their novels are examples of the classic 'fair play' whodunit mystery of the Golden Age, where plot is always paramount. Manfred B. Lee, born Manford Lepofsky, died in 1971. Frederic Dannay, born Daniel Nathan, died in 1982. Book details: published 1936. Order now on BookShops.in with fast, reliable delivery across India.