The Player on the Other Side

Re-read after a long time, remembered it as one of my favorite Queen conundrums.
The mystery holds up, but my how the times have changed.
I actually don't like Ellery, and his relationship with his father is also not one I care for, but the puzzles are fairly done and usually ingenious.

This is my first Ellery Queen mystery novel. I rarely read the mystery genre due to a preference for well-thought-out character arcs rather than well-thought-out plots - if one must choose between them - not that there can’t be both, but by then I suspect the genre story will have morphed into a psychological thriller or a tragedy. The only reason I picked this one up was that it was ghostwritten by sci-fi writer Theodore Sturgeon who published in 1953 a little mind-bending masterpiece of a novel called More Than Human. More Than Human contained ideas about psychological aberrations, human transcendence, and evolutionary mutations; and I wondered what he might make out of the constraints of an entirely plot-driven story. After show more finishing TPOTOS, I was not surprised to find some of those telltale elements of his style embedded in the work. But not enough to make me love it.

Ellery Queen, the son of New York City Police Inspector Richard Queen, is portrayed as a sloven, a brilliant-but-bored mystery writer who is content to lay about the family home smoking until the room is a blue haze and who is ever ready to mix the finest highball you’ve ever sloshed ice in. His father, stumped by the murder of a wealthy heir who was only six months away from coming into his full inheritance, entices Ellery into the hunt for the murderer if only for the reason it will get his son up and out of the house. The story builds steadily until about two-thirds of the way through when the necessity of hitting plot points requires some unlikely events. I did not guess the ultimate answer to the crime(s), but I did guess the penultimate clue before it was revealed. Had I been someone else - say, a regular mystery reader - I might have guessed the ending before it arrived, but we’ll never know.

Sturgeon presents characters’ thoughts mostly for humorous effect, and this is the strongest part of the novel. Although set in NYC, the depiction of city life was sparse and centered around a quadrangle of buildings surrounding a private park; the story could have happened anywhere a square of this type existed. The characters were shallow and existed only for the plot, and the plot existed only for the wrangling of mystery and melodrama. Overall, it was a relaxing jaunt like working a crossword puzzle with the solution page under one’s palm. show less

Maybe I have read too many stories by Theodore Sturgeon... I guessed who dunnit from the get-go. Still, it's not a bad mystery, but I wasn't expecting to be right.
Also, this book reminded me why I don't read Ellery Queen mysteries: "the great man" is so annoying!

York Square -
a family compound with four castle-like houses on each corner of the property, a private park in the center. The 'castles' are inhabited by Robert, Miss Myra, Emily and Percival; cousins who are living in the compound and are supported by a trust set-up by their uncle. They must live there for six months in order to receive their inheritance from the uncle. If any should die, then their share will be split by the rest of the group. In other words it is a tontine. Last one alive gets all.

Robert receives a card in the mail that has had one corner cut off diagonally. Shortly after, he dies from his scull being crushed by a falling stone from the front of his house. Inspector Queen is given the case to solve and brings Ellery show more in to help. Not that this is unusual, but Ellery is in a funk and seems to have no motivation to write. Not the norm for this man!

The plot is a bit like a chess game. One character will make a move, then another. What is the reason for the murders? (There are more than the first.) What is it that the cards with the cut corners signify? Who has the most to gain from the deaths?

It is interesting, but I will say the ending wasn't what I expected and not as satisfying an end for me.

Interesting note: This was not written by Lee and Dannay, the real Ellery Queen. It was written by a well-known sci-fi writer and edited by the EQ duo. show less

A very clever psychological mystery. I would have like it better if the Queens hadn't been so very pleased with their cleverness.

Ellery Queen and his father look into the murders at York Square. Millions of $ are at stake. Walt is the handyman.

First edition good