These are stories I was very fond of when young and still like, though on rereading the first stories (in which Queen is teaching an applied criminology class to 2 men and a woman0 I realize that he used very heavy handed stereotypes to describe the young woman. He also criticizes all of them for relying on just one clue each to solve the case, when in fact he does the same. Still, I wish he had continued the stories about the class.
The hanging acrobat is more subtle but powerfully grim. The one penny black is one of the many variants on Conan Doyle's "Six Napoleons" --theft of a series of apparently valueless objects., in this case copies of a widely sold book. ( )

These vintage detective tales appeared in pulp magazines of the early 1930s. They seem unlikely to be of interest to anyone other than die-hard devotees of the genre's early history. Most of the stories are extremely far-fetched in plots, motives, and solutions to the crimes at hand. Further, in a departure from the tradition of mystery stories, the reader is never given sufficient information to figure out the perpetrator. Little wonder then that one must proceed to the end to find out what EQ himself knows or has secretly observed.

On my scale of 1 to 5 stars, I awarded most of these stories zero to two apiece. Below are the included stories with my personal rankings:

The Adventure of The African Traveler (1*)
The Adventure of The Hanging Acrobat (1.5*)
The Adventure of The One Penny Black (0*)
The Adventure of The Bearded Lady (3*)
The Adventure of The Three Lame Men (2.5*)
The Adventure of The Invisible Lover (0*)
The Adventure of The Teakwood Case (2*)
The Adventure of The Two Headed Dog (2*)
The Adventure of The Glass Domed Clock (0*)
The Adventure of The Seven Black Cats (1.5*)
The Adventure of The Mad Tea-Party (2*) ( )

I had forgotten how enjoyable the old Ellery Queen stories were. If you like mysteries, this is a great read! ( )

Eleven short stories,most of which are well worth reading.Queen (the detective) is a somewhat Sherlock Holmes type of investigator.Many of the problems are of the academic sort and I particularly liked 'The Two-Headed Dog' and 'The mad Tea-Party. ( )

The short stories continue the sheer genius of these authors. ( )