This book begins with the most lushly overwritten passages this reader has come across so far in the Queen oeuvre. It feels as if the author(s) were consciously trying to make their writing more ‘literary.’ The result, however, reads more like the strained attempt of an undergraduate to emulate a serious writer than a serious writer writing naturally in their own style. Its strained conscious attempt to write at an elevated level is more noticeable by being juxtaposed with the authors attempt to capture the voice and feel of the cast of “colourful” “western” characters. While poking fun at people, such as Djuna, who are mesmerized by the world of film the authors reproduce every single cliche, trope and tired story line found in a plethora of western pulp novels and films. Indeed, if one was to pull out all the instances of stereotyping and cliche in this book and add them to the vigorously over-written passages you would arrive at volume that was larger than the original since much of it suffers from both faults.SPOILERS AHEADLeaving aside the racial, ethnic and gender stereotypes that abound in this book that may be much more obvious in retrospect than they were when it was first published there are four elements that made this book such a chore for this reader to finish.One:The authorial voice is strained, inconsistent and self-conscious to a degree that makes it hard to simply sit back and read.Two:The solution to the crime may be one of the most unbelievable imagination straining of all the contemporaneous stories and books this reader has encountered. It also suggests that the police involved were incompetent. Given the basic setup--a man has been shot during a rodeo show at a large sports arena--the idea that individuals who were within shooting range were allowed to do things such as feed and water and handle the horses without police escort and oversight while those same police search 20,000 people in the stands suggests that either the police are so untrained as to be incompetent or that the authors were simply in love with the “stunt” of a massive search. And if one looks at earlier Queen books one does indeed see repeated variations on this theme. For those who argue, as does Inspector Queen in the book, that the person who fired the gun could have thrown it to an accomplice in the crowd this reviewer points out that it is unreasonable to think that the perpetrator could have thrown the gun to someone in a nosebleed seat. To search the lower part of the audience could be argued to be justified but to search people so far away from the scene of the action is to mistake action for utility.Three: Ellery’s continual refusal to share with other people the results of his deductions is justified in this book, as it has been before, as a reaction to his public embarrassment on airing his theories during The Greek Coffin Mystery. This excuse for his purposeful obfuscation does not hold up to scrutiny. The embarrassment in that case did not arise from Ellery “having a idea” it arose from Ellery claiming that his idea was the sole good explanation only to have it pulled into pieces. The lesson to be learned was not that one shouldn’t share one’s theories rather that one shouldn’t proclaim one’s theories as if they were revealed truth. This moment of being called on his propensity to see his deductions as facts is used throughout the following books for Ellery to withhold not only his ideas but information that is vital for other people to investigate the case. Four:Ellery’s relationship with the police force not only gives him unrealistic access to information and scenes that should have remained confidential it also opens the door for behaviour on the part of the police that must, even in the legal regime of the time, put into jeopardy their ability to actually convict the individuals that Ellery fingers as the perpetrators of the crimes. It is notable that up until this point in the series even when Inspector Queen is most embattled the question of the propriety, let alone the legality, of him giving his son a special police badge is never brought up as a charge against him. His superiors, the editors of the New York newspapers, his subordinates and the population at large seem not to find this open nepotism worth discussing.Ellery has in earlier books removed pieces of evidence from the crime scene. In early books, and in this book, he instructs members of the New York Police Force to withhold information and the results of tests from his father and other officials. Ellery breaks the chain of possession for evidence, handles it before it has been inspected by members of the police force and in this book openly plants evidence on a suspect. Ellery claims that this was necessary in order to have the real murderer come forward. Ellery and his father are fortunate that the man who claimed to be the real killer shot himself rather than go to trial since it is doubtful that, even in the New York of the time, the man would have ever come to trial. Nor it is likely would the man on whom the police admitted planting evidence. What this book, and other mystery books of the time, reflected was a deep distrust of routine police work and a valorization of the detective version of the man on the white horse. Reading at this remove in time it stands out that the audience of these books was predominantly middle or upper class people or people who aspired to be middle class and the police force is routinely shown as being staffed by the men who are only a generation or two removed from Ellis Island. Ellery Queen, like Philo Vance, is fictive proof of the fact that the dull routine procedures of the working and lower middle class police force can only succeed if led by emissaries from the ”better” classes. They also reflect an acceptance among the reading population of the idea that the police and judiciary of the country are often corrupt, often incompetent and not infrequently both. In short these books reflect just how shaky the foundations of American democracy were in the period between the wars.SPECIAL NOTE: WARNING DISTURBING RACIAL LANGUAGE REFERENCEDThis reader is well aware of the many changes in American society between the date this book was published and now, particularly in reference to images of and language about African-Americans--however the especially offensive nature of both in this book stunned the reader. Queen was actually described as one of the authors who was more inclusive of minorities than some others at the time. However in this book the African-American who becomes the new heavyweight champion over the course of the story, is routinely described in animalistic terms. There is a scene in a night club in which a (white) man denounces his (white) wife for having a affair with the boxer that contains phrases that are so offensive that this reviewer is unwilling to repeat them here. If that scene had been included because the attitude of the husband had been crucial to the unraveling of the crime it might be argued that it has some redeeming literary purpose--although the reader sees no reason for the repetition of negative racial epithets to be included in the text when those same authors would never have included epithets that were equally offensive to members of the clergy. This entire scene could be easily excised from the book without the plot losing any coherence. This reader’s advise would be for librarians to at least warn people who check this book out of its potential offensiveness.
What do You think about American Gun Mystery (1976)?
I first came across the author (actually the author was two people writing together) in the late 1970s. The earlier books are convoluted mysteries but from the late 1930s the characters in the books became more and more bizarre. I enjoyed reading the series which feature the amateur detective Ellery Queen but it must be over twenty years since I have read any. I was delighted to come across this one in a second hand book shop. This copy was published in 1956 but the book was originally published in 1933 so it's one of the earlier ones.Ellery Queen is an implausible character and the plot is implausible too. Indeed the authors do not explain the motive for the murder! The authors' writing style is a bit ornate but despite all this I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Suspend disbelief and go with the flow.
—Rog Harrison
