In my younger days, meaning ancient times, I enjoyed a number of the Ellery Queen mysteries. I picked up this last (I believe) written by the duo, after a long hiatus when the books were written by others, and was sorely disappointed. It's terribly contrived (although I understand first hand how difficult to make a who-done-it sound plausible)and the murderess is all but announced 4/5 of the way through the book--although the detective acts as though he doesn't know the answer. I'll have to go back and pick up some of the older volumes, to see if they were really as good as I remembered.