A Fine and Private Place
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From the Grand Master Edgar Award–winning author, a Golden Age mystery featuring amateur sleuth Ellery Queen investigating a mobster's bizarre death. Nino Importuna has a soft face, but when he smiles, it's terrifying. His Central Park penthouse is lavish, but it was bought with the blood of his enemies. His criminal empire controls mining, electronics, and food—legitimate corporations that he runs with a murderer's touch. When he catches one of his capos stealing from him, Importuna could either kill the man or send him to prison. Instead, he makes a simple demand: He wants the thief's daughter to be his wife. On their 5th wedding anniversary, Importuna signs his fortune over to his young bride. Soon after, the nine-fingered mobster is killed by nine blows to the head and Ellery Queen receives a nine-letter note that holds the key to the homicide. In the legendary detective's final case, nine is the magic number. "Ellery Queen clearly is, after Poe, the most important American in mystery fiction." —Otto Penzler, editor of The Best American Mystery Stories "A new Ellery Queen book has always been something to look forward to for many years now." —Agatha Christie "Ellery Queen is the American detective story." —Anthony Boucher, author of Nine Times Nine
Ellery Queen
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 uses his spare time to assist his police inspector uncle 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.
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