The Roman hat mystery: A problem in deduction
Ellery Queen
Jun 2026 · Good Press
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242
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About this ebook
Ellery Queen's The Roman Hat Mystery: A Problem in Deduction, first published in 1929, inaugurates one of the foundational series of the American puzzle-detective tradition. Set largely in a New York theater after a lawyer is poisoned during a performance, the novel stages an intricate "locked-room-adjacent" investigation in which the disappearance of a top hat becomes the crucial clue. Its style is crisp, analytical, and meticulously fair to the reader, reflecting the interwar fascination with logic, ratiocination, and the codified rules of detective fiction established by writers such as Van Dine and Christie. Ellery Queen was the joint pseudonym of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, cousins who helped shape the modern mystery novel. Their deep engagement with literary form, wordplay, and deductive structure is evident from the outset in this debut. Writing at a moment when detective fiction was consolidating itself as an intellectually respectable popular genre, they created in Ellery Queen both author and detective, a self-reflexive device that underscores their interest in the artifice and elegance of criminal inquiry. This novel is especially recommended for readers who value classic fair-play mysteries and the history of detective fiction. It offers not merely suspense but a demonstration of reason under pressure, rewarding close attention with a solution both surprising and rigorously prepared.
Ellery Queen's The Roman Hat Mystery: A Problem in Deduction, first published in 1929, inaugurates one of the foundational series of the American puzzle-detective tradition. Set largely in a New York theater after a lawyer is poisoned during a performance, the novel stages an intricate "locked-ro...
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