The Chinese Orange Mystery

Ellery is an irritating protagonist, an empty shell of affectations devoid of the complexities and hidden turpitudes of a Wimsey, a Holmes, even a Poirot. And the plot isn’t much more engaging. The how relies on a convoluted trick with poles and string that I could scarcely follow, and when we got the who I had to double check their identity in the cast list at the start of the book. Frivolous nonsense.

An unknown visitor to the office of publisher Donald Kirk is found dead in a locked room. No one has been seen to enter or leave the room. Most puzzling of all, everything in the room is backwards – including the dead man's clothes. Who was the man, why was he killed, and who murdered him? Fortunately, Ellery Queen is on hand to assist his father, Inspector Queen, with unraveling this unusual mystery.

The mystery is filled with red herrings. Objects at the murder scene and relationships among the characters are described in great detail, yet it's not easy to determine which of them are important and which are irrelevant. The one aspect of the murder that should have been obvious to me was obscured by the many elements at the scene that show more Queen had to investigate. The most enjoyable aspect of the book is the relationship between Ellery and his father, Inspector Queen. Their strengths complement each other, and their conversation rings authentic.

It's been years since I've read an Ellery Queen mystery, and I haven't often found them where I shop for books. My public library recently added several Ellery Queen mysteries to its collection of downloadable audiobooks, and I'll definitely listen to more of these now that they're more easily accessible. show less

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Title: The Chinese Orange Mystery
Series: Ellery Queen
Authors: Ellery Queen
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 172
Words: 70.5K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia.org

A wealthy publisher and collector of precious stones and Chinese postage stamps has a luxurious suite in a hotel that serves to handle his non-publishing business and the comings and goings of his staff, his relatives, and his female friends. When an odd and anonymous little man arrives and show more refuses to state his business, no one is surprised; he is locked (from outside only) in an anteroom with a bowl of fruit (including tangerines, also known as Chinese oranges) and left to await the publisher's arrival. When the door is unlocked, though, a truly bizarre scene is displayed.

The little man's skull is crushed, his clothing is reversed, back to front, all the furnishings of the room have been turned backwards — and two African spears have been inserted between the body and its clothing, stiffening it into immobility. The circumstances are such that someone has been observing every entrance to the room, and no one has apparently entered or left. The situation is further complicated by some valuable jewelry and stamps, the publisher's business affairs and romantic affaires, and a connection with "backwardness" for seemingly every character. It takes the considerable talents of Ellery Queen to sort through the motives and lies and arrive at the twisted logic that underlies every aspect of this very unusual crime.

My Thoughts:

First off, this whole time (however long since I've heard that Ellery Queen was a mystery writer) I have thought that Queen was a woman. A Grand Dame of the Golden Age of Mystery Writers. So imagine my surprise when it turns out that not only is Ellery Queen the writer AND main character of the series but that HE is a young middle aged private detective living at home with his father.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh.

There was no real order listed on the library site I borrowed this from so I pretty much randomly poked my finger at a title and said “I am reading YOU”. I guess this is book 8? Didn't really seem to matter though.

This reminded me of Dorothy Sayers and her Lord Peter Wimsey and not in a positive way. While there were no railroad schedules or pages of fake code to decode, there was an exhausting amount of detail that didn't matter to me as I just wanted a fething mystery to read about, not solve. I've talked about that aspect of mysteries that I despise but since a large segment of the mystery community wants such garbage, well, the authors pander to them and not to me. It was a very shocking realization to my delicate and fragile ego.

I have to admit, I am not having a good feeling about the longevity of the friendship struck up between me and Queen. I'm giving Queen 3 books to impress me and then it's cement shoes for him if he doesn't. These authors think they're big stuff and as a reader, I've learned to put them in their place. With cement shoes.

★★★☆☆ show less

In Ellery Queen mysteries, God is in the details. I'm always flabbergasted by the stunt whereby the author tells us that, given we were astute enough, we should solve the mystery logically. That trick never gets tired of. This particular story was lacking in form and quality and decisiveness. The appearance of Ellery Queen at Kirk, then at Sewell's place was odd and jarring. That cost the book one or two stars. The mystery itself is not perfect, as the ubiquitous rope is used to seal the locked room mystery. Been there etc. But even not at their best Ellery Queen remains a formidable writer.

This is one of Queen’s more formulaic works. Indeed it could be argued to be an urban, American equivalent of the hoary old “English Country house isolated by bad weather” story. An improbably inter-related group of people are drawn together by secrets. Characters withhold facts and information for apparently no other purpose that to obfuscate things. Ellery Queen, the detective, seems to suffer from a strange form of professional amnesia so that obvious clues are overlooked and obvious similarities to other crimes ignored while Ellery Queen, the author, seems prone to every form of overgeneralized misconception about China that could arise from limited research.

Believe it or not, the first Ellery Queen mystery I’ve ever read. A good one too. Queen is a little kind of over the top smarmy and pain in the butt like, though I understand as the series goes on the act kind of wears off.

I liked this book. An usual mystery in which a man is found dead behind a locked door with his clothes on backwards as well as the furniture and wall decorations are all turned backwards. Ellery Queen eventually figures it out. Hint - it involves an extremely rare stamp.