The Chinese Orange Mystery (An American Mystery Classic) in Appointment With Agatha

Oct 04, 2020 Mark rated it liked it

The name “Ellery Queen” is one of those that I’ve long seen associated with mystery stories yet knew little else about. Was he an author? Was he a character? Imagine my surprise when I discovered he was both! Thanks to a reading group, I finally made the time to read one of the Ellery Queen novels, which proved an interesting experience.

Set in New York City in the early 1930s, the story is a classic “locked room” mystery but with a twist: not only is the body found in a locked room, but everythi ...more

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Oct 16, 2020 Christine PNW rated it liked it · review of another edition

I was unconvinced at the beginning, but it grew on me by the end. I don't think Queen will ever make it into my list of favorites, but I enjoyed it. ...more

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Oct 14, 2020 BrokenTune rated it did not like it

The Chinese Orange Mystery by Ellery Queen (1934), was my first taste of American pseudo-author Ellery Queen, who seems to have been renowned for writing mysteries with a leaning towards the hard-boiled police drama.
In this story, Ellery Queen, who is also the main character of the series, is called to solve a mystery involving a body found wearing his clothes back to front.

I did not enjoy this book at all. Not one bit. At several points, I was tempted to DNF the book, but I only persevered to f The Chinese Orange Mystery by Ellery Queen (1934), was my first taste of American pseudo-author Ellery Queen, who seems to have been renowned for writing mysteries with a leaning towards the hard-boiled police drama.
In this story, Ellery Queen, who is also the main character of the series, is called to solve a mystery involving a body found wearing his clothes back to front.

I did not enjoy this book at all. Not one bit. At several points, I was tempted to DNF the book, but I only persevered to find out what the solution to the puzzle was.
The problems I had with the book were largely the same issues I had with The Hollow Man: it was a work of someone who didn’t just try to be clever but wanted the reader to know at every opportunity how clever the author, or in this case authors, were and how insufficiently clever the reader is.
The plot was preposterous from the start, but what made things worse was that the main characters was an annoying brat, whose supporting cast of characters we looked down on by the main characters just as much as the – or rather this – reader was.
And all of this was wrapped up in the sort of overly-simplistic narration that reminded me of another book I disliked immensely, Dorothy B. Hughes’ The So Blue Marble.

In addition to the issues I had with the characters, plot, pace, and style, the book also included an onslaught of slang and idioms.

I don’t mind slang or local / temporal colour at all, but it still has to work in the format, which in this case is the written book. Not a radio programme, not a stage play, it’s textual. We don’t get the benefit of tone of voice or facial expression with the slang and guffaws (in the case of The Hollow Man), and I might have liked both books a little better if we had had that.

It annoyed me even more that the characters kept talking in this slang to each other – something I don’t appreciate in any book – without actually saying anything of substance. To me this book was just one long ramble of nothing but stuffing.

There was even one scene where even Ellery’s father shouted at him “Talk English, will you?”. I may have laughed out loud.

Yeah, sorry, this book did not work for me at all.

(This review was originally posted on my blog - https://brokentuneblog.com/2020/10/16... ) ...more

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Oct 27, 2020 Natalie aka Tannat rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook, fiction, mystery, read-in-2020, halloween-bingo

An interesting mystery that gets solved because the murderer just gets too elaborate. I wasn't terribly enamoured of Ellery Queen though. ...more

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Oct 07, 2020 Brenda rated it liked it · review of another edition

This was my first first reading of an Ellery Queen mystery besides watching the series on TV years ago.

I thought this an interesting mystery, although maybe a bit convoluted. But I guess that's how a mystery should be? I really had no idea how it happened and it left me guessing until the absolute end. I don't know that I found anything remarkable about it except that it was a good locked room mystery. I found the first half interesting, and then I lost interest for a bit after that until they ...more

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Oct 17, 2020 Tara rated it really liked it

Shelves: american-mystery-classics, owned, mysterious-bookshop

An interesting NYC Gilded Age murder mystery with effete amateur detective Ellery Queen. Blackmail, gems, romance, stamp collecting, its got it all! Considered both a fair game and locked room mystery, the reader is given all of the clues to solve the case, although this does not necessarily make it easy to do so. Some bits strain the imagination, but overall it was good fun.

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