The Last Woman in His Life

According to Wikipedia, this Ellery novel was, despite its lateness in the canon, written by Dannay/Lee rather than being among the ghostwritten ones. It's also, I'd say, one of the weakest; I bought it on the basis it must be that rara avis, an Ellery novel I hadn't read, then halfway through realized I had read it, and not in fact all that many years ago. That's more or less a literary judgement in itself.

John Benedict invites his three ex-wives to a weekend at his country retreat, where he breaks it to them that in future they're not going to enjoy the same financial benefits from him as heretofore; not surprisingly, he gets bumped off before too many hours have passed. Luckily he'd also invited Ellery and the Inspector to join the show more party, and so we know the solution to the mystery can't be too very far away. The trouble is that the first of the mystery's two solutions is a rebarbative piece of contrivance (it depends on how a combination of the three women's names could be misheard) and the second -- genuine -- solution relies on a piece of social prejudice that happily most of us regard as history . . . as would the majority of enlightened readers in 1969, I'd have thought. So, while the writing has the trademark zip of the Ellery novels, whoever wrote them, the setup seems artificial and the mystery more-or-less likewise. Not the Queens' finest hour. show less

De groene pruik was van een rood harige.De zwarte avondjapon behoorde toe aan een revue-girl in Las Vegas en mislukte Broadway-actrice.De witte handschoenen tenslotte waren eigendom van een voluptueuze verpleegster.Deze drie kleding stukken lagen op een hoopje in de kamer van de vermoorde Johnny Benedict, zonder een spatje bloed.Op het moment van de aanslag werden ze dus niet gedragen, concludeert inspecteur Queen.Wat voerden de drie ex-vrouwen van Johnny dan wel uit ten tijde van de moord?Wie was de laatste vrouw in zijn leven?