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HTML:A Shakespearean actor-turned-sleuth wonders if a suicide's been staged—and suspects the members of an eccentric New York family . . . A ramshackle trawler, the Lavinia D rumbles into New York harbor with empty nets. When its crew spies something floating in the water, they drag it in, hoping for a profitable catch. Their prize flops on the deck, limp, cold, and bloody: the corpse of a man. His name was York Hatter, and he had disappeared from his house on the fashionable Washington show more Square several days before. He hadn't left a note and he wasn't carrying any money. The police assume he killed himself—but they are very wrong. The Hatter family is famously eccentric, and when a murder attempt is made on York's invalid stepdaughter, any one of them could be the culprit. Solving the case will fall to Drury Lane, the retired Shakespearean actor who has turned his genius to solving crimes. But he may find that these Hatters are so crazy and so deadly, they even put Hamlet to shame. Fiction. Mystery. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Extremely Van Dine-ish--echoes of the Greene and Bishop cases especially. More readable than many Queens of this vintage but second half sags badly. It is never made explicit what it is that certain character(s) suffer from: is it syphilis?
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Haycraft Queen Cornerstones
181 works; 3 members
Tozai Mystery Best 100 | The Top 100 Mystery Novels
111 works; 3 members
Author Information
284+ Works 14,480 Members
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Tragedy of Y
- Original title
- The Tragedy of Y
- Original publication date
- 1932
- People/Characters
- Drury Lane
- First words
- Ugly bulldog of a deep-sea trawler, the Lavinia D headed in from the long Atlantic swells on that interesting February afternoon, swam past Sandy Hook, snarled at Ft. Hancock, and pushed her way into the Lower Bay, foa... (show all)ming at the mouth and with her tail stuck straight out behind her.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Bruno said in a peculiar voice: "Come, Inspector. Mr Lane is tired. We'd better be getting back to the city."
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Statistics
- Members
- 127
- Popularity
- 255,274
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.47)
- Languages
- 9 — Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 12
- ASINs
- 10
