Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Finishing Stroke (Ellery Queen Detective #26) by Ellery Queen The Finishing Stroke Trivia Quiz. Ellery saw that the use of the Phoenician alphabet was meant to indicate someone associated with letters and lettering. Arthur Craig, being a publisher, was the most likely person indicated by it. Ellery knew this meant Arthur was being framed, so he kept his mouth shut. Moreover, Ellery noticed the name of Arthur's publishing company was ABC Publishers, another allusion to the alphabet. Ellery figured out that John Jr. was actually the oldest of triplets, not twins. John Jr. explains that the dead body in his bedroom is John III, the youngest triplet. The Halls never mentioned the third son to John Sr. because he was furious with the second son and feared what reaction he would have if he found out there was a third. John Jr. said John III (both sons were named John) found him in New York City and wanted his claim to his father's fortune which John Jr. would receive on his twenty-fifth birthday: January 6, 1930. He agreed to willingly split the money in half with his younger brother. They came up with the prank of having the twins both pretend to be John Jr. for the fun of it. No one noticed, even Arthur Craig, who raised John Jr. Creator / Ellery Queen. Golden age mystery writer, used as both a pen name for two authors, cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, and as the eponymous character. For the television series featuring the character, see Ellery Queen . Books by (and/or) featuring Ellery Queen: Novels. The Roman Hat Mystery — 1929 The French Powder Mystery — 1930 The Dutch Shoe Mystery — 1931 The Greek Coffin Mystery — 1932 The Egyptian Cross Mystery — 1932 The American Gun Mystery — 1933 The Siamese Twin Mystery — 1933 The Chinese Orange Mystery — 1934 The Spanish Cape Mystery — 1935 The Lamp of God — 1935 Halfway House — 1936 The Door Between — 1937 The Devil to Pay — 1938 The Four of Hearts — 1938 The Dragon's Teeth AKA The Virgin Heiresses — 1939 Calamity Town — 1942 There Was an Old Woman AKA The Quick and the Dead — 1943 The Murderer is a Fox — 1945. The Finishing Stroke (1958) Here is the second last Ellery Queen novel. The first last Ellery Queen novel, Ten Days Wonder , saw the detective deciding to call it quits, to no longer try to play the role of God in people’s lives. That retirement lasted only until the events of The Cat of Many Tails drew him back into the fray, and led to a decade of pretty good books with a new twist of social issues thrown in. Now comes The Finishing Stroke , a throwback to the hermetically sealed drawing room mysteries of the 1920s and 1930s. The lengthy prologue takes place in 1905, the year of the cousins’ births, and, by extension, of the Ellery Queen character’s birth. The bulk of the book takes place 25 years later, just after Ellery has published his first novel, The Roman Hat Mystery . That triumph leads to his invitation to a fortnight in the country with 11 other up and coming artists and well-established professionals: a composer, a poet, an actress, a designer, a college student, a psychic, a printer, a publisher, a lawyer, a doctor and a minister. Together the make up a dozen potential suspects trapped to together until 12th night. Much is made of the number 12 in this mystery. It remains, however, unsolved for 28 years, when Queen is reminded on his early failure, and remedies the situation. As usual, nobody goes to jail. This was my first Ellery Queen novel, purchased at Caldor’s in Norwalk, Connecticut, soon after I first saw the 1970s Ellery Queen TV show. I remember picking this novel because of the cover, which featured a skull in a red tissue paper lined gift box, perfect for a 12-year old’s sensibility! I also remember the concepts of the book, the drawing room mystery, the 20 clues, the knowledgeable detective, as being new, fresh and original, but then again, it was the first mystery novel I ever read. It’s still a good read, even with much older eyes. This time around I was rather skeptical about how long it took Ellery to determine the core of the mystery was a set of twins. It was so obvious (partly because we learn about the twins in the prologue!), and Ellery just dragged out this part of the mystery, until he and we learn that one of the twins died at two weeks old. This throws all suppositions and what is so obvious to both Ellery and the reader out the window in a bit of very well-played writing. There are holes in the plot, of course, since by this time the cousins had left the meticulous mystery style behind, and were concentrating on good reads with intriguing characters more than making sure everything in the world makes logical sense. Even so, I remember being more impressed by the clues when I was 12. I think I left the book with the impression that such esoteric knowledge was part of what any well-educated person knows. Really. Now, as a relatively well-educated adult, I think it’s safe to say that the esoterica of The Finishing Stroke has never been a part of my learning process. Everything I know about early Phoenician alphabets I learned from Ellery Queen. Ellery Queen Detective Books In Order. Ellery Queen is both a title character in a series of crime thrillers as well as the name of the author of the author of the series. Ellery Queen, as in the authors, is taken up as a pen name used by novelist cousins Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay and Manford (Emanuel) Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee. Ellery Queen Detective enjoyed a successful run of over 42 years through a large number of highly popular novels. An interesting incident in Frederic Dannay’s childhood incident shaped his and his cousin’s destiny. Little Frederic once fell sick at the age of 12 years. Since he had to miss school and was bored doing nothing at home, his mother got him one of Sherlock Holmes’ novels from the local library. This incident became the turning point in his life and the idea of detective thrillers germinated in Frederick’s fertile mind. His cousin Manford Lee, who was close to him since childhood also caught the detective thriller contagion. In fact, they have been so inspired by Sherlock Holmes that Ellery Queen Detective is often hailed as the “logical successor to Sherlock Holmes”! Hardly surprising, is it? For cousins Frederic Dannay and Manford Lee, this fascination for detective crime continued through their growing years. It was only in their youth that an opportunity presented itself. A magazine organized a contest in which participants had to submit a book-sixed manuscript and the winning entry would be published. The cousins decided to try their hand at writing and submitted their manuscript. They won the contest. Unfortunately, the magazine could not make good on their commitment to publish their book, as it abruptly shut down its operations. However, it did not put a spanner in the works. They were destined to be successful novels and destiny shapes its own course! A book publisher came forward to publish their manuscript which came out as The Roman Hat Mystery. It was the first book featuring their star Ellery Queen Detective. Using the pseudonym Ellery Queen as both the central character as well as their pen name was a smart idea by Frederic Dannay and Manford Lee. It made it easier for the readers to recollect the name as well as relate to it. As a further measure to help readers’ memory, they ensured that they used the name several times and at regular intervals throughout the book. Both these ideas worked very well to make their character, Ellery Queen Detective, a popular hero amongst the readers. Another unique strategy adopted by the authors was to put a box with a challenge to the reader at the appropriate place in the book. The challenge was obviously customized for every book but in essence it assured the reader that all clues and information needed to solve the mystery are already laid out by that time and a challenge was thrown at the reader to see if they could solve the mystery. This simple but brilliant idea by the authors, and most of the readers actually paused to think, evaluate the clues in their minds and solve the mystery, before they proceeded to read the climax to check if they could correctly solve the mystery. This strategy gave an interactive feel to the books and contributed to the overall success of the Ellery Queen Detective series. Ellery Queen Detective was an immensely popular fictional character, especially in the 1930s and 1940s. The character itself was gradually evolved and even altered during the course of 42 years of its literary existence. The initial Ellery Queen Detective books portray him as a Harvard- educated snob wearing prince-nez and solving cases for his own curiosity and creative satisfaction. He supposed emulates his mother’s qualities, who was the daughter of an affluent aristocratic family from New York. In the next phase, from 1938 onwards in the novels- The Four of Hearts and The Origin of Evil, Ellery works as a Hollywood screenwriter, during which he solves cases in a Hollywood setting. In this period, he is slick, suave and debonair, very much a part of the Hollywood crowd and very comfortable in his skin while intermingling with the rich and famous. From 1942, in Calamity Town and its two sequels as well as some short stories, all set in Wrightsville, an imaginary town, you see a very different Ellery Queen Detective. He sheds his cynicism and becomes more of a sentimental person. He becomes so emotionally attached to the various people involved in the cases that at one point he even quits his profession as a sleuth! However, after these sojourns in Hollywood and Wrightsville, he is transported back to the place he originally hails from – New York City. This return of Ellery Queen Detective to NYC also marks the return of Ellery Queen Detective to his emotionally detached coldly logical persona. People often joked that there are two different Ellerys, probably two brothers! The Greek Coffin Mystery, The Tragedy of Y, Ten Day’s Wonder, The Player on the Other Side and Face to Face are some of the most popular novels of Ellery Queen Detective. Movies like The Spanish Cape Mystery, The Mandarin Mystery, The Crime Nobody Saw, Ellery Queen, Master Detective, Ellery Queen’s Penthouse Mystery, Ellery Queen and the Perfect Crime, Ellery Queen and the Murder Ring are some of a number of movie adaptations based on Ellery Queen Detective. The TV adaptation of Ellery Queen Detective series which aired on NBC during television season of 1975-76 also riveted the views and went on to become immensely popular. Most of these adaptations were scripted by Frederic Dannay and Manford Lee themselves. In fact, they were hired to write the scripts and screenplays of several other Hollywood projects as well. Most of Ellery Queen Detective series readers place him amongst the popular detectives list with the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Perry Mason, Hercule Poirot. etc. So, if you have not read any of Ellery Queen Detective books, grab one today! It is not to be forgotten that the series provided everything a reader would look out for in a book -an informative piece as well as an educational and entertaining one. It’s not something to miss. The Finishing Stroke (Ellery Queen) For a treat, after I finished reading The Downtown Jews , I read an Ellery Queen mystery. Hadn’t done that in years; Martin and I always loved them and agree that the early ones, though fiendishly — relentlessly — smart, are nowhere near as interesting as the later stories, where Ellery is a more thoughtful, more merciful, character, less interested in being right than in just knowing — sometimes to his regret. Ten Days’ Wonder , The Player on the Other Side , And on the Eighth Day , and Double Double are among the darker, deeper stories of this period; so too is The Finishing Stroke , which I just learned (here: http://neptune.spaceports.com/ queen/index.html) was likely intended as the last Ellery Queen mystery by creators and coauthors Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee. I read them all years and years ago; but the wonderful thing is that now I can’t remember what I read yesterday, let alone 30 years ago, so these are all there for me to enjoy anew. This was a fun read, a quick read, a delicious read, the kind of read where you can’t wait til bedtime because you can read and read and read. And then you’re sorry you’re sailing through so quickly because it will be over all the sooner, and you’ll be back to a book that — even if interesting or uplifting or unusual or thought provoking — doesn’t give you the fevered rush of the Truly Good Read. This, for me, was a Truly Good Read. And as I read, I tried to figure out why it was. One element is the characters. They are, none of them, particularly believable, including, for example, a bitter Schoenberg-influenced Italian composer and a matronly Ouija enthusiast. The supporting characters are generally one-dimensional: Lieutenant Luria is peevish, Valentina Warren is vampish, Olivette Brown is foolish, and so on. The lead characters display a wide-ranging collection of knowledge, interests, and talents that can indicate complexity, but really just makes them enigmatic. This is particularly true of Ellery Queen. Like so many icons — Mickey Mouse comes to mind — his very ubiquity makes him familiar, but when you try to analyze him, to pin down his character, you realize that you are seeing — reflecting — your own values, attitudes, and opinions in — and on — him. What all the characters share, however, is recognizability. A few traits are sketched in, and the reader willingly fills in the rest from the cues given. Which of course allows the mystery writer free rein, because the reader is busy making frequently unconscious assumptions based on what he or she thinks the character can or would do. You accept the characters more or less at face value, and rocket along in the reading. The setting is another element. This story is set north of New York City in Rye; because we were just there when we took Sarah to SUNY Purchase, it was fun to read about places we had been — albeit over a century later (the story opens in 1905). Ellery had lived in the Village with the book’s protagonist in the ’20s; that was fun too, trying to visualize Ellery at Bleecker and MacDougal. The author (Ellery Queen books are too smoothly written to ever feel comfortable attributing them to two authors, Dannay and Lee) handles the setting as he does the characters, sketching quickly and with assurance, confident you’ll know what and where he means. And you do. An elegant drawing room; a disordered kitchen; an incongruous summerhouse in the dead of winter. You don’t need much more for your imagination to race on. Moreover, the story is primarily set in 1929, and, because Ellery solves the murder 27 years later, when he, the protagonist, and Dannay and Lee are all 52 years old, the author is looking back reminiscently and has larded the descriptions and dialogues with the fulsome flavor and picuyune details of the era. During one of the 12 days in which the 12 houseguests are essentially and increasingly grudgingly trapped in the mystery, “The older men maintained a desperate conversation–about Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms …about the Senate committee’s investigation of the sugar lobby and the rumors of sensational revelations; about the modernist movement in art, led by Picasso…about the recently developed ethyl gasoline being advertised; about Pan-American’s overseas flights to the West Indies, Sir James Jeans’s contention in The Universe Around Us that ‘God is a mathematician; the universe was not created for human beings,’…the new IBM calculators…King George V’s illness.” Passages like that are irresistible in their smooth evocation and keen relish of — not times gone by, but — history. And there are sly references to that budding author, Rex Stout, and even to Ellery’s own notices for his debut Roman Hat mystery, published in 1929 (the mystery is very meta). Which brings us to the plot, which is likely one of the strongest drivers of the Truly Good Read. You gotta know what happens! It’s compelling, baffling, maddening. Ellery is faced with a locked-door mystery with absurd clues, barrels of red herrings, 12 suspects whom you KNOW couldn’t have done this (but one did — didn’t he?). The 52-year span of the story makes for a fascinating framing device: you know the mystery won’t be solved when it occurred, and you know that the key to the mystery (maybe) was in the 1905 episode that opens the book. The clues, hypotheses, explanations, excuses, and rationales fly — building, twisting, interconnecting, but never adding up until the very end. Quite satisfying. (Although the mystery was, as I do remember from my earlier Ellery Queen reading days, way out of my league. I would never ever have figured it out — challenge to the reader be damned. Talk about obtuse.) Although about every fourth or fifth page has a longish descriptive paragraph or two, most of the narration is made up of short passages, interspersed with lots of dialogue. This also keeps the book’s pace rapid. Even though all of this, narration and dialogue, is sprinkled with the most erudite words — some of which have fallen out of use (her step-ins lost during a flagpole-sit), many of which were never really used by anybody except Ellery Queen characters (a bullwhip of the sjambok type?) , and some of which I admit I didn’t know ( naevus ) but just relied on context to carry me through (apparently, some sort of birthmark) — and polysyllabic turns of phrase straight out of a high screwball comedy (“Having observed certain curiosa of incident and behavior, I applied Queen’s Law of the Displacement of Material Bodies, which states that not even a poet can be in two places at the same time…All of this, incidentally, was corroborated by Queen’s Law of the Rising Eyebrow…”) or a hard- boiled noir (“Can’t talk, hm? Just tell me this: Your nose clean?” “Spotless.”), despite this — because of this — the reader is never lost. You are sped through the exposition and suppositions on strong and sturdy language, crisp phrasings, and bracing metaphors. And ultimately, this, this, is what makes The Finishing Stroke in particular and the Truly Good Read in general “unputdownable.” The words. It’s well written. Clever. Quick. Tight. Never a clumsy phrasing or awkward passage that makes you look up and go “wha?” or attempt to parse the unparseable. It’s smooth and fluid and of a piece and of a tone. Yes, everybody sounds the same — but what a sound! what vocabulary! what sentence structure! I am not trying to compare Ellery Queen to Faulkner or Woolf, but I read a lot. And I edit far more than I want to. I edit when I read, which I don’t want to do, ever. But so often the books I read, fiction and nonfiction, seem to have no editor. That’s what makes this Truly Good Read such a treat, a pleasure. I could turn off the critical part of my mind, and just be swept away by snappy dialogue, lucid phrasing, twisty plotting — and Ellery.