The Adventure of the Murdered Moths and Other Radio Mysteries

by Ellery Queen

THE ELLERY QUEEN-TENNIAL!!!!! Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, who wrote under the pseudonym “Ellery Queen,” and whose fictional sleuth was also named “Ellery Queen,” were probably the most important American mystery writers from 1929 until the early 1970's. “Ellery Queen is the American detective story,” wrote Anthony Boucher – and he meant not only their detective novels, but also their critical writings, their editing, and their appearance on television and the radio. From 1939 until 1948, Lee and Dannay wrote a hugely popular radio mystery show, The Adventures of Ellery Queen, which like the EQ books stopped the action toward the end and challenged the audience to deduce whodunit. From the more than 350 surviving scripts, we have chosen fourteen of the most • The case of the Tontine whose members die off one by one • The disappearance of Napoleon’s Razor on a cross-country railroad train • The case that Sherlock Holmes failed to solve • The strangling in a haunted cave with only the victim’s footprints leading to the corpse • A dying message which seems to name all the suspects • The clue of the dead moth • and 8 other extraordinary mysteries This book is published in honor of the centennial of the births of Lee and Dannay, and (n the fictional world of EQ), the centennial of Ellery himself. The Founded in 1994 as the only publishing house to specialize in mystery short story collections, Crippen & Landru has been described as “a monument in the making” (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine) and “the best edited, most attractively packaged line of mystery books introduced in this decade” (Mystery Scene), and even “God bless Crippen & Landru” (The Strand). In many ways, however, in introducing completely unknown EQ detections to a new generation of readers, The Adventure of the Murdered Moths may be our most important book.

Genres: Mystery, Short Stories

300 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2004

About the author

aka Barnaby Ross.
(Pseudonym of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee)
"Ellery Queen" was a pen name created and shared by two cousins, Frederic Dannay (1905-1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905-1971), as well as the name of their most famous detective. Born in Brooklyn, they spent forty two years writing, editing, and anthologizing under the name, gaining a reputation as the foremost American authors of the Golden Age "fair play" mystery.

Although eventually famous on television and radio, Queen's first appearance came in 1928 when the cousins won a mystery-writing contest with the book that would eventually be published as The Roman Hat Mystery. Their character was an amateur detective who used his spare time to assist his police inspector father in solving baffling crimes. Besides writing the Queen novels, Dannay and Lee cofounded Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, one of the most influential crime publications of all time. Although Dannay outlived his cousin by nine years, he retired Queen upon Lee's death.

Several of the later "Ellery Queen" books were written by other authors, including Jack Vance, Avram Davidson, and Theodore Sturgeon.

Reviews

[Esmeralda Vorewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doveva essere un passatempo estivo e infatti è durato tutta l'estate. Ah, l'estate... Assaporata col contagocce per non farla finire troppo presto, così come ho fatto per questo libro, centellinando le pagine.

[Thomas Wüstemann · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was diving more into crime novels last year, I not only began reading the still-published Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, founded by Frederic Dannay and  Manfred B. Lee, authors of the shared pseudonym, in 1941, but also The Egyptian Cross Mystery, which was said to be one of the most infamous Queen novels regarding blood centimeters per page and overall naughtiness. But by this novel I was disappointed. It was too constructed for my taste and, in this, too protracted, and, in the implausible solution, didn't even let its detective shine, who only added some explanations to the already caught culprit.
But seeing the importance that Ellery Queen has for crime fiction, I was willing to give him another chance. And am glad that I did.

The Adventure of the Murdered Moths is delightful and does everything right that the novel did wrong. This might have to do with the much shorter length of the plays, which brings the potential of the Ellery Queen formula to the forefront. Like in the novels, every radio episode concludes with the challenge to the listener. After every clue is presented, the episode pauses, and we can guess the culprit. Not once was I able to do that. I don't know whether I'm just not clever enough (or not used enough to the mechanisms of crime stories) or whether it is because the cases are still heavily constructed and implausible. But that doesn't matter in the span of 20 pages. When the mystery is revealed, it still feels satisfying more often than not.
The short succession of cases allowed me to get a grip on the themes and structural mannerisms that Dannay and Lee deploy and appreciate them for what they are. The frequent use of stage magic, not only thematically but also in the construction of a mystery, the constant callback to well-known mystery writers and tropes in locked room mysteries, dying letters, and impossible crimes.

And while some of the stories and solutions are still over the top, a few are really clever. My favorite regarding the solution is "The Adventure of the Man Who Could Double the Size of Diamonds".

This one really plays out like a trick of stage magic. With the distraction of the crowd, the illusion of complexity, and, in the end, the most simple solution.

It's one of the shorter plays in the latter half of the book, that obviously were common in the later broadcasts, cutting the playing time from one hour to half an hour, making the stories much more poignant.
Between the longer stories, my favorite is "The Adventure of the Dying Scarecrow". Here, the usual dialogue structure is supplemented by a narration of different characters, including our favorite Nikki, which allows for a much grander narrative.

A lot of the stories' charm comes through the inventive dialogue, which incorporates different slangs and speech mannerisms and really makes the characters lively, although not seldom at the cost of stereotypes and (everyday)-racism.

The book itself is built with a lot of love. The only letdown is the practice that the limited edition, which I read, has an additional booklet with an added story that is missing in the regular edition. I understand added value for a limited edition, but that shouldn't affect the content.

[Alonzo Church · Rating 4 out of 5]

Radio from the late 30s, early 40s, usually isn’t very good. The comedy isn’t funny. The drama (with exception of Suspense, which has a John Dickson.Carr connection) is often under characterized. The mysteries — frequently inane.

But, my wife gave this to me, so I was going to give this collection of radio scripts a shot. This came at an interesting moment in the EQ career, when the novels went from the glossy, slick magazine EQ, to melancholy Ellery, when the tragedy of being the frequently wrong EQ finally seems to get to him.

One can see the change beginning here, particularly since the bulk of these scripts are from 1939, when the shows ran an hour which left more room for establishing a mood. These are mostly good stories, a couple of which are quite dark. (One of these foreshadows the first of the Wrightsville mysteries — Calamity Town.) Ellery is still the smart man who lives with his dad. For commercial radio purposes, he also has to be the guy who ignores his pretty and smitten secretary. In the tradition of series radio, he is not a deep character — just a vehicle for solving crimes.

Nonetheless, this is worth the time. The concessions to commercial radio (the cute secretary) only grates occasionally. EQ fans will enjoy.

[Alberto Avanzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

La forma del radiodramma è particolarmente efficace nei gialli: solo dialoghi senza noiose descrizioni, come avevo sperimentato la scorsa estate con Carr. Questa raccolta comprende una decina di radiodrammi, degli anni 30 e 40, periodo in cui questa forma di rappresentazione era molto comune.
Ricordano molto per struttura e qualità la mia raccolta preferita, Miss Marple e i tredici problemi. E nel complesso sono nettamente migliori delle raccolte di Queen che ho letto finora.
Si leggono in circa 30 minuti, e sono caratterizzati da un forte aspetto enigmistico, con la Sfida al lettore ma anche con una cura notevole ad atmosfera e personaggi.
Sfida che spesso ho azzeccato almeno nell’identità del colpevole (anche se di solito non per gli indizi, che sono ben celati, ma piuttosto per elementi metanarraativi) o nelle modalità, ma che in nessuno dei radiodrammi ho vinto completamente: c’è sempre stato almeno un particolare che mi è sfuggito, in ogni soluzione.
Va detto che alcuni particolari sono difficili per noi perché riferiti a usanze dell’America di allora che noi italiani del ventunesimo secolo non possiamo conoscere.

[Jameson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really special and I wish another volume would be published. I love reading these Ellery scripts. They’re very good. It’s such a shame more episodes aren’t available. And the ones that are available online are mislabeled, crummy, or both.

One annoying thing is this book is missing “The Case of the Three Macklins" unless you can afford one of the 275 clothbound editions. At this point why not just publish it online? The clothbound editions are mighty expensive. Why do people hoard stuff? Allegedly a lot of mp3s of Ellery Queen episodes exist solely in the vaults of private collectors. If they were true fans they would make these episodes available to as many other fans as possible. I have zero respect for people like that. (See also Miss Marple’s first tv appearance.) Make this stuff available now why there’s still interest. I’m sure your relatives will just think it’s junk and toss it, meaning it would be lost forever.

Something else that’s really special is a website dedicated to all things Ellery Queen on Radio. It’s a tad depressing to know how many episodes are unavailable—especially considering that the EQ duo wrote the scripts themselves and when they stopped the great Anthony Boucher took over! Hopefully some day, somehow, more episodes will be uncovered. As for the scripts, I’d literally buy a print-on-demand-or-whatever book of simple scans of the remaining scripts. This stuff is too good not to see the light of day. At least archive them, People Who Own EQ Scripts.

http://www.digitaldeliftp.com/Digital...

[Lisa Kucharski · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories are short but well-crafted. I did guess the culprit a couple times. There seemed to be clumps of stories told in similar ways as well, I wonder if this was due to the writing teams creating blocks of stories. The one thing that I disliked is that the character of Nicky (the lovely lady bent on marrying) would blather on, and then be told this was no place for a woman when she came upon a dead body. I'm aware this has been cliché forever but- always annoys me.

I would say that the stories also were quiet gruesome at times, and stepped outside the norm of usual killers. Nice to read some Ellery Queen mysteries I did not know until this year.

[Gabriele Crescenzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ottima raccolta di radiodrammi di Ellery Queen. Un libro leggero, dinamico e piacevole. Ogni racconto ha la "sfida al lettore" uno dei marchi di fabbrica di tali autori. La logica che conduce al colpevole è come sempre impeccabile, con indizi a sufficienza per arrivarci. Tra questi radiodrammi mi hanno particolarmente stupito "la grotta infestata" (riguarda una camera chiusa) e "le falene assassinate".

[Juan Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

En el más clásico estilo de ellery Queen esta colección de Radio Plays es indispensable para los fans del detective. Excelente colección con el clásico Challenge to the Listener.

[800£Chimneypiece · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Sofia Fresia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ho apprezzato moltissimo questo volume, scoprendo con grande entusiasmo che non si tratta di un romanzo giallo convenzionale, bensì della trascrizione dei copioni radiofonici di avventure ispirate ai gialli di Ellery Queen e aventi anche i medesimi personaggi, ma riadattate in modo tale da essere godibili in un certo lasso di tempo (alla radio non puoi starci incollato tutto il giorno, o no?) e disseminate di “indizi” in modo tale che l’ascoltatore attento possa essere in grado di risolvere il mistero autonomamente (anche se mi sembrano tutte molto macchinose come soluzioni…non credo che in una diretta radio ci sarei arrivata!!!). Riporto un pezzo che ho trovato sul web riguardante questa pubblicazione.
«Ellery Queen è il romanzo poliziesco americano», lo scrive Anthony Boucher – forse il più conosciuto recensore di gialli – e la frase la ritroviamo tra i ringraziamenti di pagina 425. E uno che va di fretta potrebbe fermarsi qui: Le falene assassinate è un'antologia di radiogialli, una raccolta attempata con tanto d'indicazioni nei dialoghi. E i rumori. Già, anche quelli. Così non manca niente e potete mettervi alla prova come attori, sempre se riuscite a convincere amici e parenti a stare al gioco. C'è poi La sfida al lettore, proprio come nella famosa serie di telefilm, dove ai telespettatori viene chiesto di stanare il colpevole. Gli indizi ci sono tutti, eravate attenti? Se sì, forse riuscirete a fare bella figura con zia Tonina.
Ci sono alcune differenze tra i radiogialli – andati in onda dal 1939 al 1948 – e il telefilm, che risale alla metà degli anni '70: in radio il sergente Velie era un vero coglione, a lui spettava il ruolo comico. Con risultati dubbi, per il lettore moderno. Nella versione radiofonica c'era pure Nikki Porter, la segretaria di Ellery. Sempre infoiata, roba che Miss MoneyPenny si propone poco...
Perché leggere Le falene assassinate? Per tenere i neuroni in movimento. Se poi non vi sente nessuno, potete leggere il libro ad alta voce e fare le vocine. Un passatempo sano ed economico!

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The name of Ellery Queen had attained dizzy heights in the so-called golden age of crime-writing for several reasons, notably:
1. Because every one of these stories were firmly based on the principle of fair play where Ellery and the reader/members of the audience get to know the same hints and clues;
2. Ellery's character, with its youthful (and sometimes irritating) attitude towards life, contrasted nicely with the dark and dangerous themes of murder and betrayal;
3. The cute relationships that Ellery shared with his near-and-dears endeared them to all & sundry;
4. Being plot-driven, the stories could stand tall amidst all the vagaries of surroundings.

The best of these stories (in this collection) have all these traits, the weakest among them goes down being not-driven by the plot. But all-in-all, every one of these stories deserve to be read afresh, and enjoyed again, esp. by readers like us who are suffering from the copper-age kind of current crop of hefty but boring novels. Recommended.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

These short radio plays (though I classed them as short stories) are surprisingly enjoyable and hold up well (they were written and performed in the 1930's and 1940's). Detective Ellery Queen, his secretary Nikki Porter (who wants a more romantic attachment), his father, police inspector Richard Queen, and Sgt. Velie, for muscle and comic relief, solve a variety of crimes, with Ellery always finding a rational way around what may seem like some supernatural events. Perhaps the high quality is because of the involvement of the two cousins who wrote the books about, and credited to, "Ellery Queen."

[Scott]

Amazingly typeset and proofread!