Sun 10 Jan 2021
Diary Review: ELLERY QUEEN – The Fourth Side of the Triangle.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[12] Comments
ELLERY QUEEN – The Fourth Side of the Triangle. Random House, hardcover, 1965. Paperback reprints include: Pocket, 1967; Ballantine, 1975, 1979. Actually written by Avram Davidson, from detailed story outline by Fred Dannay. TV pilot: 23 March 1975, as Ellery Queen: Too Many Suspects (screenwriters: Richard Levinson & William Link; Jim Hutton as EQ & David Wayne as Inspector Queen).
Ellery, confined to bed with two broken legs, is involved with a strange love triangle consisting of Ashton and Lutetia McKell, their son Dane, and Ashton’s “mistress,†Sheila Gray. Upon learning his father’s secret, Dane tries to interfere and becomes Sheila’s lover himself.
When Sheila is murdered, the police arrest each member of the family in turn. After two dramatically ending trials, Dane’s parent are cleared, but a blackmailer implicates Dane, and he also is accused. Ellery’s deductions point to Ramon, the chauffeur, but he is only the blackmailer. It is Inspector Queen who discovers the final clue proving [the killer’s] guilt, one of his few triumphs over his son.
Maybe Perry Mason can do it once in each of his stories, but [two trials are] a bit far-fetched. The second in particular is concluded with a million-in-one accident providing a surprise witness, hardly believable.
The plot is rather clumsily handled through pages 80-83. Dane supposedly tells everything except his (first) attack, but the lack of reaction from his listeners makes it unclear if everything was told. But yet he must have disclosed both his father’s secret and his involvement, for both are implied later.
In fact, they confront his father with the story a few pages later, yet again he also has a surprising lack of reaction, even though the complete story has not come out at the trial. Confusing indeed, though not vitally affecting the mystery, the solution to which can at least be partially guessed.
Entertaining, but not completely satisfying.
Rating: 3½ stars.
January 10th, 2021 at 10:29 pm
Wasn’t this filmed as the pilot for the Jim Hutton EQ series?
It is not very satisfying, neither good Davidson or EQ. Silverberg and Sturgeon both did better with better basic material from Dannay.
January 10th, 2021 at 11:42 pm
Yes, you’re quite right. This was the basis for the pilot of Jim Hutton’s TV series. I loved that show, but it failed, I think, because the plots were too complicated for most viewers. (Just my opinion. I have no facts to back that up.)
Davidson ghost wrote two of the EQ books, Sturgeon one, but I don’t think Silverberg did.
Sturgeon: The Player on the Other Side
Davidson: The Fourth Side of the Triangle, The House of Brass,
January 10th, 2021 at 11:54 pm
By the way, I’m not particularly happy with this review, but there is no way I can try to fix it up now. My explanation if what I found muddled at the time is, shall we say, muddled. I’ll just have to live with it.
Or read it again, and write a complete new review!
January 11th, 2021 at 12:23 am
Did Davidson write AND ON THE EIGHTH DAY?
January 11th, 2021 at 12:34 am
Yes, you’re quite right. I missed that one. That makes three for him.
January 11th, 2021 at 2:26 am
Guess what. I just found a copy of this book in a box I just hauled in from one of my storage areas. I like coincidences like that. I’m going to start reading it tonight.
January 11th, 2021 at 9:06 am
I read this book once, as a teenager in 1969. Remember being disappointed – found it just so-so.
I liked AND ON THE EIGHTH DAY as a teen – but haven’t read it since either.
I’m a giant Ellery Queen fan. But mainly didn’t like his post-1960 novels. But haven’t reread any in decades. Maybe they have virtues I didn’t get at the time.
January 11th, 2021 at 10:19 am
I remember reading and liking THE FOURTH SIDE OF THE TRIANGLE, THE PLAYER ON THE OTHER SIDE, and especially AND ON THE EIGHTH DAY when they first came out, but have never reread any of them to see how they hold up. When I got to THE HOUSE OF BRASS, though, I thought, yeah, this isn’t very good. My favorite EQ novels are the ones from the Thirties and Forties. By the way, I thought the Jim Hutton TV series didn’t quite capture the books, but it came close enough that I really enjoyed it and wished it had run longer.
January 13th, 2021 at 11:21 am
Speaking as an average-intelligence civilian, I can state that the Ellery Queen TV series was NOT ” … too complicated for most viewers”.
Its inability to catch on in ’75-’76 was in two parts:
(1): EQ’s Fall timeslot on NBC was Thursday night at 9:00/8:00 Central, opposite ABC’s Streets Of San Francisco (then in its fourth season and at a peak of popularity) and CBS’s primetime movies (always a wild card).
(2): NBC aired an EQ episode as a one-shot on Sunday evening at 8:00/7:00 Central, where it did notably better, running second to Six Million Dollar Man, but ahead of Cher’s faltering variety show; in those three-network days, a 30-share loss-leader was allowable.
NBC made the Sunday move permanent, and initially got reasonable 2nd place numbers –
– and then CBS staged the on-camera “reconciliation” of Cher with her ex (Sonny – you remember him, don’t you?), accompanying this with a tabloid publicity drive worthy of the Second Coming.
It was all (you should excuse the expression) a Ten Days’ Wonder, but those were the Ten Days when the ratings were taken, and there you are.
Of course, if EQ had stuck around, Jim Hutton’s cancer would have kicked in during Season Three (or Four, or whenever), so there’s that …
And anyway, whatever happened to Sonny and Cher?
Cher won an Oscar, and Sonny was elected to Congress.
Okay, bad example …
My point (?) was that in the TV of that time, location was everything; if your show happened to be good, that was a bonus – but if your opposition was already established, you were rolling the dice.
I think … (?)
January 13th, 2021 at 12:18 pm
All good points, Mike. Also in terms of refuting my own comments, I *think* I remember reading somewhere that cancelling the EQ series led somehow to the creation of the MURDER SHE WROTE series, which also depended on serious detection on the part of Jessica Fletcher, clues, suspects and all. And I’m sure everyone would agree that that show was a success.
January 14th, 2021 at 5:04 pm
Followup (in re Murder, She Wrote):
– Levinson & Link, and their protege Peter Fischer, began their partnership on Columbo and firmed it up on Ellery Queen; those shows ended, but L&L&F still came up with ideas:
After several pilots that didn’t catch on, there was The Eddie Capra Mysteries, which ran for only a half-season on NBC (but became a semi-cult in the c2c DVD marketplace).
– CBS came to L&L&F, looking for a new vehicle -for Jean Stapleton.
Our Heroes came up with the premise for Murder, She Wrote – which Jean Stapleton passed on, reasons unknown.
At that exact moment (more or less), Angela Lansbury decided to give TV a try; she was looking for a sitcom, but L&L&F made their pitch anyway, and –
– but CBS was a harder sell, because Angela Lansbury’s Broadway resume meant nothing in “flyover country”, or so conventional wisdumb had it.
But a wiser head at CBS prevailed, Murder She Wrote got on –
– and everybody in the business said it would be THE flop of that season (” We thought six and out!” was Dick Levinson’s assessment of their chances) –
– except, of course, it wasn’t: “six and out” turned into 261 hours and 4 TV-movie sequels.
William Goldman’s Law:
Nobody KNOWS Anything.
January 25th, 2021 at 7:00 am
[…] earlier report on this later stage EQ novel was posted here as part of my series of Diary Reviews written over fifty years ago. Since a copy of the book came […]