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A review by lachesisreads
The French Powder Mystery by Ellery Queen
4.0
A woman drops dead from a folded bed on display in a large store... and Ellery Queen saves the day (and the reputation of the blundering police).
This book started so-so for me. In some way, these mysterys have aged less well than others from the golden age of crime fiction. The "cool, hardboiled police slang" sounds rather quaint and sometimes even a little ridiculous to a modern ear, and the racial attitudes of the day that occasionally surface are jarring today.
But at about the halfway-mark it started picking up pace and I got invested in the story, and was completely engrossed by the time the big dénouement came around. The strong finish made this a 4 star, rather than a 3 star, book for me. I will definitely go on with the series now.
A very nice touch is that in all Ellery Queen mysteries (well, all I've read so far) there comes a point before the big revelation scene where the reader is addressed: The reader now has all the clues and hints in their hands, knows everything that the detectives know and could, theoretically, solve the crime without reading further.
There are no mysterious last clues produced in triumph as by slight of hand that the reader hadn't known about before, as it was often done in other mysteries.
All in all a very enjoyable read! I would definitely recommend this, particularly to readers who enjoy Christie, Chandler, Marsh or even Conan Doyle.
And, last but not least, this book was my entry for "A Classic Crime Story" for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2018.
This book started so-so for me. In some way, these mysterys have aged less well than others from the golden age of crime fiction. The "cool, hardboiled police slang" sounds rather quaint and sometimes even a little ridiculous to a modern ear, and the racial attitudes of the day that occasionally surface are jarring today.
But at about the halfway-mark it started picking up pace and I got invested in the story, and was completely engrossed by the time the big dénouement came around. The strong finish made this a 4 star, rather than a 3 star, book for me. I will definitely go on with the series now.
A very nice touch is that in all Ellery Queen mysteries (well, all I've read so far) there comes a point before the big revelation scene where the reader is addressed: The reader now has all the clues and hints in their hands, knows everything that the detectives know and could, theoretically, solve the crime without reading further.
There are no mysterious last clues produced in triumph as by slight of hand that the reader hadn't known about before, as it was often done in other mysteries.
All in all a very enjoyable read! I would definitely recommend this, particularly to readers who enjoy Christie, Chandler, Marsh or even Conan Doyle.
And, last but not least, this book was my entry for "A Classic Crime Story" for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2018.