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Ellery Queen, hoping for anonymity and some quiet time for writing, has rented a house in Wrightsville under the name Ellery Smith. The town, Wrightsville, appears ideal - attractive homes, friendly people, and little crime. The writer Ellery Smith is quickly embraced by the community, especially by the founding family of Wrightsville. All is tranquil, that is, until a series of arsenic poisonings earns Wrightsville the name Calamity Town. --Michael...

Ellery is persuaded to accompany an old friend to his ancestral home -- when the latter arrives at Ellery's house covered in blood and unable to remember anything from the past few weeks. There, tensions erupt and foul play results in the murder of one of the household's members.

Ellery Queen returned to Wrightsville to solve the mystery of a rich man-believed poor-who died of "old age," a poor man-believed rich-who committed suicide, and a scholarly drunk who disappeared. Shortly it occurred to Queen that the puzzle had a pattern. A twisted mind was committing murder according to an old nursery rhyme! Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief … and to at least one person in town, the chief was Ellery Queen.

Ellery Queen and his father discover a baffling murder on a private island Ellery Queen and his father are meandering through breakfast when their apartment is invaded. Without making a sound, 2 men appear in the Queens' living room, guns drawn, and proceed to search the place. When they're done, a 3rd man follows: a paunchy little professor-type who happens to be the brother of a king. King Bendigo doesn't rule a country, but his control of the international...

Walt was a handyman of York Square, home of four surviving heirs to the York fortune, people whose lives were threatened by the mysterious "Y." Ellery Queen must figure out who is killing the Yorks, one by one: the stamp collector, the social worker, the alcoholic...

When Gloria Guild, the singing "Glory" of the thirties and millionairess of Count Carlos Armando, is murdered, she leaves only one clue--the word "face" written in her dying scrawl.

To escape a manhunt, a gang of killers takes a cop's daughter hostage After years of toil for Aztec Paper Products, Thomas Howland only makes $112.90 per week. When it comes time for the company to compensate its workers, he is in charge of carrying the payroll: $24,000 in cold hard cash. Eventually, Howland is overcome by temptation. In exchange for a promised cut of the spoils, he hands the payroll over to a gang of thieves-but they reward him with...

Ellery Queen investigates a mobster whose bizarre death is marked by the number 9 Nino Importuna has a soft face, but when he smiles, it's terrifying. His Central Park penthouse is lavish, but it was bought with the blood of his enemies. His criminal empire controls mining, electronics, and food-legitimate corporations that he runs with a murderer's touch. When he catches one of his capos stealing from him, Importuna could either kill the man or...

Could murder really be hereditary? Davy Fox certainly thinks so. When he was only a boy, his father, Bayard Fox, was convicted of murdering Davy's mother in the small town of Wrightsville. Now that Davy has grown up and returned home from the war, he fears that it is only a matter of time until he kills his own wife. But could he really do such a thing? Desperate to find out the truth, Davy's wife, Linda, calls on Ellery Queen to investigate the twelve-year-old...

Inspector Richard Queen finally gets a murder case he can call his own When unmarried women get into trouble, A. Burt Finner is waiting at the hospital to save them. This greasy-lipped fat man knows all about babies: how to change them, how to feed them-and how to sell them to the highest bidder. He buys low, getting them from their distressed mothers just a few hours after birth, and sells high to millionaires who are unable to have children of their...