The Chinese Orange Mystery

The offices of foreign literature publisher and renowned stamp collector Donald Kirk are often host to strange activities, but the most recent occurrence—the murder of an unknown caller, found dead in an empty waiting room—is unlike any that has come before. Nobody, it seems, entered or exited the room, and yet the crime scene clearly has been manipulated, leaving everything in the room turned backwards and upside down. Stuck through the back of the corpse's shirt are two long spears—and a tangerine is missing from the fruit bowl. Enter amateur sleuth Ellery Queen, who arrives just in time to witness the discovery of the body, only to be immediately drawn into a complex case in which no clue is too minor or too glaring to warrant careful consideration.

The Chinese Orange Mystery was selected as one of the top ten locked room mysteries of all time by a panel of mystery-world luminaries that included Julian Symons, Edward D. Hoch, Howard Haycraft, and Otto Penzler.

"One of the greatest riddles in Golden Age detective fiction . . . the unbridled ingenuity of its central puzzle has never been surpassed" — Kirkus Reviews

Praise for the writing of Ellery Queen:

"Ellery Queen clearly is, after Poe, the most important American in mystery fiction." —Otto Penzler, editor of The Best American Mystery Stories

"A new Ellery Queen book has always been something to look forward to for many years now." —Agatha Christie

"Ellery Queen is the American detective story." —Anthony Boucher, author of Nine Times Nine