Death Spins the Platter
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From the Grand Master Edgar Award–winning author, a classic mystery in which a reporter investigates the murder of a rock 'n' roll DJ at a live event. From 3:00 to 4:00 every afternoon, Tutter "Tut" King reigns supreme. The dreamy disc jockey is a favorite of the sock-hop set, spinning all the records that are too rocking for their parents to let them buy. When Tut is implicated in a payola scheme—taking as much as $100,000 under-the-table to push third-rate records—his teenage fans stand behind him. For Tut's last radio appearance, the teenyboppers turn out in force. He promises them a shocking announcement at the end of his set. Instead, they get a murder. During intermission, some unfriendly listener buries an icepick in the record spinner's chest. Reporter Jim Layton believes that Tut was about to implicate his bosses in the corruption. Now it's up to Layton to determine who put radio's coolest DJ on ice. Praise for Ellery Queen: "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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