From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

The Roman Hat Mystery (Ellery Queen Detective #1)

Ellery Queen

Start date: November 1, 2023

Finish date: November 30, 2023

Discussion: Group Challenges

Why we're reading this: This mystery set in the theatre is next in our Scenes of Classic Crime challenge
[close] This mystery set in the theatre is next in our Scenes of Classic Crime challenge

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Group Challenges

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) by Agatha Christie
By Susan · 17 posts · 19 views

last updated 6 hours, 19 min ago

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) - SPOILER Thread
By Susan · 13 posts · 22 views

last updated Sep 16, 2025 12:58PM

What Members Thought

Jan 02, 2017 SewingandCaring rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: detectives

My goodness the a lot of people reviewing this know very little about the golden age of detective fiction or indeed, history.

Firstly, no chit there is a lot about a hat in it. For that young lady who did not understand why they focused on it so much - everyone wore hats in that era, a missing hat would be as incongruous then as a missing wallet would be to us today.

Secondly, educated people in America in the late 1920s spoke and behaved like that, rating a book low because of it speaks volumes ...more

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May 05, 2015 Kavita rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, usa, jazz-age, movie-was-better

A man is found dead in a theatre during a play and the police are called in. Inspector Richard Queen shows up with his son Ellery, and thus begins the story of the first Ellery Queen novel. The plot starkly brings out its setting in the 1920s since the mystery basically hinges around a missing top hat. The victim's hat is missing and no one went out of the theatre with two hats. Where is the missing hat and what is its significance? The plot is well-constructed and hangs together remarkably well A man is found dead in a theatre during a play and the police are called in. Inspector Richard Queen shows up with his son Ellery, and thus begins the story of the first Ellery Queen novel. The plot starkly brings out its setting in the 1920s since the mystery basically hinges around a missing top hat. The victim's hat is missing and no one went out of the theatre with two hats. Where is the missing hat and what is its significance? The plot is well-constructed and hangs together remarkably well.

But nevertheless, I was not overly impressed by this first effort of Messrs. Daniel Nathan and Manford Lepofsky. What could have been a great read was rendered mediocre because the authors chose to follow the police action and hide everything of interest from the reader till the last chapter. The narrative hinges around the missing hat to such an extent that it takes up the bulk of the book. Without character development, we don't get a sense of the various characters, not even as seen through the eyes of Queen. The narrative gets stuck in finding the hat and apart from a couple of interactions with the suspects, the dialogues are mostly the Queens and the policemen discussing the case among themselves, which was not sufficient to retain interest. The narrative is also repetitive with the same thing being rehashed over and over again.

Ellery was a vague character throughout the book and in the second half, he just disappears. Inspector Queen seems to be suffering some sort of personality disorder since he consistently changes mood, even within the same scene. One moment he is bright and cheerful and the next, he is bawling out at people. He also has a creepy dependency on his son and goes into depression when Ellery so much as goes for a vacation! However, this is the one character who is fully fleshed out in the book.

There is some racism in the book as well, but that's to be expected. Still, it hits you rather hard when the black houseboy of Queen is consistently compared to a monkey, and leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It's rather hard to take even taking the times into account. The motive for the crime is also slightly racist but it appeared realistic and interesting because it fit the period.

The book is certainly of historical interest and to mystery lovers, it's the first of an important series of golden age mysteries that defined the genre. So it must always be of interest to some of us. But taken purely as a novel, it does not stand up very well. ...more

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Aug 02, 2021 Lady Wesley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: listened, aud-plus, mystery-golden-age-or-similar

My first Ellery Queen book and thoroughly enjoyable. The narrator is best heard at 1.1 speed.

First published in 1929, this book is naturally dated in some of its social attitudes, particularly with respect to the Queens' servant. It does not bother me, but others may disagree.

Queen's books are neat logic puzzles, and there is a point in the book where the narrator announces that all of the clues have been disclosed that should enable the reader to identify the murder. Of course, I couldn't, but ...more

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Oct 19, 2023 Susan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is my first Ellery Queen novel and the first by the authors (Queen being a pseudonym) published in 1929. This is of its time, and having read a lot of British Golden Age crime, I recognised some similarities and some differences. However, it shared a victim that was not particularly sympathetic, a theatrical setting, which often crops up in mysteries of this era, and a lot of working out the mystery, in this case mainly between Inspector Queen and his beloved, bibliophile son.

When Morgan Fi ...more

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Dec 29, 2020 ShanDizzy rated it liked it · review of another edition

"These, roughly, are the facts: A man of shady character, Monte Field, probable head of a vast criminal organization, with undoubtedly a host of enemies, is found murdered in the Roman Theatre ten minutes before the end of the second act, at precisely 9:55 o’clock. He is discovered by a man named William Pusak, a clerk of an inferior type of intelligence, who is sitting five seats away in the same row. This man, attempting to leave, pushes his way past the victim who before he dies mutters, ‘Mur "These, roughly, are the facts: A man of shady character, Monte Field, probable head of a vast criminal organization, with undoubtedly a host of enemies, is found murdered in the Roman Theatre ten minutes before the end of the second act, at precisely 9:55 o’clock. He is discovered by a man named William Pusak, a clerk of an inferior type of intelligence, who is sitting five seats away in the same row. This man, attempting to leave, pushes his way past the victim who before he dies mutters, ‘Murder! Been murdered!’ or words to that effect. A policeman is called and to make sure the man is dead, secures the services of a doctor in the audience, who definitely pronounces the victim killed by some form of alcoholic poisoning. Subsequently Dr. Prouty, the Assistant Medical Examiner, confirms this statement, adding that there is only one disturbing factor—that a man would not die so soon from lethal alcohol...said Ellery. “But let’s leave that for the moment and get on to the problem of Field’s tophat.”
“The hat—well, what do you think of it?” asked Queen curiously.
“Just this. In the first place, we have fairly established the fact that the hat is not missing through accident. The murdered man was seen by Jess Lynch with the hat in his lap ten minutes after Act II began. Now—for the moment, let’s forget the problem of where the hat is now. The immediate conclusion to draw is that the hat was taken away for one of two reasons: first, that it was in some way incriminating in itself, so that if it were left behind it would point to the murderer’s identity. What the nature of this incriminating indication is we cannot even guess at the moment. Second, the hat may have contained something which the murderer wanted. You will say: Why couldn’t he take this mysterious object and leave the hat? Probably, if this supposition is true, because he either had not sufficient time to extract it, or else did not know how to extract it and therefore took the hat away with him to examine it at his leisure. Do you agree with me so far?”

Read this book on Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/book/171095893 ...more

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Oct 29, 2023 Jill rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is the first book in this series, and while I liked the introduction of the two main characters, father and son, working together to solve this crime, I did find at times it was quite reparative. I did expect the duo to do everything possible to succeed in solving the crime, but the details of the searches was just a bit too much. I realise that probably the police have to repeat a lot of their procedures, but the details of every one were too much in my opinion. Having put that aside, the ...more

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Jan 08, 2017 John Frankham rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime-detective

A 2019 re-read confirms the view below.

The first, 1929, Ellery Queen whodunnit, jointly authored as a competition entry.

Interesting set-up, with New York Inspector Richard Queen, abetted by his non-cop son Ellery, in investigating the theatre murder of a crooked lawyer. Almost like a couple of private investigators with detectives to do the hard yards. But where has the man's top hat gone ...?

Rather uneven. 4* is a little generous. An interesting solution to the hat mystery, and a splendid denou ...more

1 like · Like · see review