Publisher's Weekly Review
First published in 1931, this exceptional entry in the American Mystery Classics series from MWA Grand Master Queen (the pen name of Fredric Dannay and Manfred B. Lee) offers a scrupulously fair puzzle. After well-to-do Abigail Doorn collapses into a diabetic coma, she's taken to Manhattan's Dutch Memorial Hospital, where she revives, but later falls down a flight of stairs and ruptures her gall bladder. But when she's brought into the operating room, she's found to have been garroted to death, possibly by someone impersonating a surgeon. Her wealth leaves no shortage of suspects for Ellery Queen and his father, NYPD Insp. Richard Queen. Ellery, who epitomizes the infuriatingly brilliant detective, announces at one point that he has learned practically everything about the criminal, except the person's identity. An interlude in which Ellery and Richard discuss their theories is printed with extra-wide margins for note-taking. Appearing before the final reveal is a challenge that asserts the reader now has all the relevant evidence to deduce Doorn's murderer. This is a genuine treat for those who love to match wits with fictional detectives. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Ratiocination king Queen's third case, originally published in 1931, finds him fortuitously on the scene minutes after strangling makes the scheduled surgery on a high-profile hospital patient unnecessary.Wealthy philanthropist Abigail Doorn has been such a durable patron saint of the Dutch Memorial Hospital, and in particular of head surgeon Dr. Francis Janney, that when she goes into a diabetic coma, tumbles down a flight of stairs, and ruptures her gall bladder, there's no question where she'll go for treatment or who'll perform the surgery. Ellery Queen, who's dropped in to ask his old friend Dr. John Minchen a technical question about rigor mortis and then accepted his invitation to stay and watch the procedure, happens to be on hand when Abby is wheeled into the operating theater, unveiled, and found to be dead, a loop of wire embedded in her neck. The initial evidence seems to point the finger at Janney himself, but a brisk round of questioning and a search of the surrounding rooms indicate that the hospital's leading benefactor was murdered by someone impersonating her favorite doctor, someone who left behind a hastily basted set of white duck trousers and a pair of shoes that become the principal, and virtually the sole, clue to the mystery. The suspects, as usual in the early Queens (The Chinese Orange Mystery, 1934/2018, etc.), are forgettable, and the potential motives straight off the rack. But the consistent emphasis on the hospital's rigorous routine not only provides important evidence, but makes Ellery seem relatively less stiff than usual, though it's still hard to forgive the constant drip of quotations presumably meant to indicate his irresistible erudition.As for the solution that follows Queen's signature "Challenge to the Reader," it's one of Ellery's brainiest, built on a slender foundation but expounded at such exhaustive length that only the most churlish readers would think of resisting it. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
When a wealthy woman is strangled in a hospital full of witnesses, an early-twentieth-century New York City man-about-town turns sleuth to unmask her murderer. Ellery Queen was the pen name of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee as well as the name used for their protagonist; the series eventually became a franchise popular on radio and television. The first few novels, of which this is the third (1931), were largely formulated in the style of the upper-class Philo Vance mysteries by S. S. Van Dine, and some modern-day crime fiction fans might find the idea of the sleuth as top-hatted dandy a bit strange. But Queen, while something of a prig, is always amusing, and he mellows out over time. Promise. Resurrected by Otto Penzler for his American Mystery Classics series, this book is a textbook Golden Age ""fair play"" mystery. Readers accumulate clues and usually solve the crime simultaneously with the detective. Perfect for a discussion group exploring the history and variety of the mystery genre.--Jane Murphy Copyright 2019 Booklist
