The Tragedy of X is Drury Lane's debut novel. Lane is a Shakespearean actor who was forced into retirement due to deafness. As compensation for his hearing loss, he has developed an extraordinary skill at lip-reading and his acting background has given him plenty of practice at the art of disguise. He will use both skills as he helps Inspector Thumm and District Attorney Bruno track down a ruthless killer intent on evening old scores.The story opens with Thumm and Bruno driving up to Lane's fortress estate on a mission to solicit his help with their latest murderous puzzle. Reference is made to the help he gave on "the Cramer case" but we, the reading public, are never enlightened with the details of that mysterious outing. The current victim is Harley Longstreet, a wealthy stockbroker, who has been killed on an enclosed streetcar in the company of his nearest and dearest. The method? A piece of cork stuck with dozens of pins laced with deadly poison. And who did it? One of the people on the that streetcar. But there is no evidence and not even a clue to point the police in the correct direction.Enter Drury Lane. Like Sherlock Holmes, he sees and "hears" everything that the police do--but he observes all the finer points that the officials miss. He thinks to interview those that the police miss--or give only a brief once-over. Before long, Lane knows who the culprit is, but has no proof. Two more men will die before Lane can help the police put the cuffs on the villain.The story is an interesting variation on the locked room mystery. The streetcar's windows are all shut and the doors were not opened once Longstreet collapsed. None of the passengers were allowed off the car until the police arrived to question and search them. And yet Lane insists that there is a certain item that must have been found if that is true. How did the murderer kill in full view of a carload of passengers and how did she or he dispose of the crucial item? Solve that and you'll be ahead of the police...and Drury Lane.An interesting mystery with clues galore and twists and turns throughout. A good fair play story--it's all there, if you're nimble enough to spot it--with (in my opinion) just one weak spot. The wrap-up--Drury Lane gives a marathon session monologue to explain the murders. It would seem necessary to tell us every little thought process along the way--even explaining the bits that the reader was privy to (and the police were not). Twenty-four pages of smallish print is rather a lot of explanation. Three and 3/4 stars...nearly 4First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
From the authors- Ellery Queen a mystery featuring not Ellery Queen but a different detective- Drury Lane a retired actor who lives on an estate called The Hamlet. He is deaf, surrounded by theater types and lives away from the world. Lane is lured in to help on a baffling case (because he helped out on another by reading about the incident in the paper and calling in the answer.) In typical Ellery Queen style the characters are all a bit larger than life. A man who, clearly isn't the likable sort, is killed on a bus after he has announced his engagement to an actress and has invited a group of people to celebrate at his home. Won't give anything away, but the telling of the story is fun... and it may seem that Lane can see the obvious things that many miss in the chaos of all the sorted events. But all in all an enjoyable read. Certainly not as complex as the Ellery Queen (the detective writer) series, but fun all the same. Short reads too..
What do You think about The Tragedy Of X (1986)?
Classic 'consulting detective' murder mystery: in 2012, the #14 novel in English on the Tozai Mystery Best 100. In 1930s New York, the police invite the amusingly arrogant Shakespearean actor Drury Lane to suggest how to proceed in a murder investigation that has them stumped. The infodumps are voluminous and intriguingly detailed regarding means of transit: streetcars, ferries, and railways are important to the plot. The mystery is archetypally convoluted and implausible, but it's nonetheless fun to unravel. The Drury Lane books are evidently much bigger in Japan than they are in the English-speaking world. Maybe the Japanese translation is amazing. Or maybe it's the 3-4 instances of casually racist language used by secondary characters that make the English versions unpopular.
—Christopher
