Fri 12 May 2017
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: ELLERY QUEEN – The Siamese Twin Mystery.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[8] Comments
William F. Deeck
ELLERY QUEEN – The Siamese Twin Mystery. Ellery Queen #7. Frederick A. Stokes, hardcover, 1933. Pocket #109, paperback, 1941. Reprinted many times since, in both hardcover and paperback.
Ellery Queen’s seventh novel, and, in my opinion, by far the weakest to this point in his career. Ellery and his father, Inspector Richard, are returning from a vacation in Canada. Ellery takes a short cut, and the two find themselves cut off by a raging (is there any other kind?) forest fire.
The only refuge is the top of Arrow Mountain, where they come to the home of Dr. John Xavier, an eminent and retired surgeon, who has with him members of his family and other characters who act in the prescribed guilty manner before there is anything really to be guilty about.
As the fire races toward the mountaintop, Dr Xavier is murdered while playing solitaire and is found clutching half of a playing card in his hand — the six of spades. Later, another character is murdered, and in his hand is half of the knave of diamonds. Ellery’s interpretation of these clues are, in the first instance, weak and in the second rather tortuous, but it’s fun watching him at work.
This is the first Queen novel that does not have the usual “challenge to the reader.†Queen explains this in The Chinese Orange Mystery, without naming the novel missing the challenge, as merely an oversight, but since Ellery himself does not know who did it until the very end of The Siamese Twin Mystery — and the murderer is revealed through psychological trickery rather than ratiocination — any challenge to the reader would have been ludicrous.
Some oddities in the novel: the forest fire knocks out the telephone line, but the electricity supply never falters. Even while the house itself is burning, the light bulb in the basement, though “feeble,†continues working. There is never any mention of a generator on the premises, nor is it likely, with the house at the top of a mountain very difficult of access, that the electrical wires would be underground.
The Queens put the deck of cards from Xavier’s solitaire game in the house’s safe, but Ellery keeps the actual evidence, the six of spades, and describes the safe as a “sort of baited trap.†Yet when the murderer seems to try to get into the safe, both Ellery and his father are surprised.
Why would the murderer, they wonder, try to get the evidence from the safe when the safe didn’t contain the evidence? It does not occur to them that perhaps they had neglected to tell the murderer the safe did not contain the evidence. Besides, the murderer’s attempt is an essential device to keep the plot going, not to help the reader solve the crime.
Also, when the fire reaches the house and sets it afire, Ellery has all the characters go to the basement. Maybe this is the safest place to be when a two-story house is burning down above you and the ceiling of the basement, since we are not told otherwise, is wood, but it does seem a strange refuge.
Is The Siamese Twin Mystery worth reading despite its problems? Any Queen is worth reading, however weak it might be.
May 12th, 2017 at 9:15 pm
This is quite a devastating review, and I have no doubt that Bill was right on all counts. The setting is what makes this one memorable, though. Trapped on the top of a mountain by a ring of fire continually coming closer and closer — and trying to solve a murder mystery?
I don’t believe you could ever forget this one, once you’ve read it.
But Bill was awfully good in finding the flaws in books, whether in the logic, word usage, down to sentences that simply don’t make sense.
I think this review is Bill at his best.
May 13th, 2017 at 10:51 pm
I’ve always assumed the fault is mine, but I never been able to finish any of the three Ellery Queen mysteries I’ve tried to read. I got farther into “The Siamese Twin Mystery”(about two-thirds in) than either “The Chinese Orange” or “Cat Of Many Tails”. Does anyone have a suggestion of an EQ title that might convert me?
(I find both Ellery and his dad to be paper-thin characters and their banter in particular sets my teeth on edge; so I may just be immune to the books’ charms…),
Also, any recommendation for any of the “Barnaby Ross” Drury Lane mysteries to try?
Thanks in advance.
(Rick Libott)
May 14th, 2017 at 5:42 am
Ellery Queen novels of the 1920s and 30s are pure puzzle mysteries, and three-dimensional the characters in them are not. Things improve in that regard in the 40s, but if you didn’t get very far with CAT OF MANY TAILS from 1949, then I probably can’t convert you by telling you that my favorites are THE EGYPTIAN CROSS MYSTERY (1932) and THE KING IS DEAD (1952).
As for the Drury Lane books, I’d suggest starting with the first, TRAGEDY OF X, but while the series doesn’t star EQ and Dad, the style is the same, with the goal being fair play detective fiction over everything else.
May 14th, 2017 at 12:16 am
I enjoyed this one, but grant all the points made.
May 14th, 2017 at 8:58 am
Ellery Queen was a great writer of detective short stories.
Newcomers to EQ can learn all about him by first reading the collection “Calendar of Crime”, then the collections “The Adventures of Ellery Queen” and the “The New Adventures of Ellery Queen”.
The huge varieties of settings and plots in these tales will introduce you to the Ellery Queen World. It’s a vast and complex place, where reason reigns supreme!
My favorite of the Drury Lane books is the third “The Tragedy of Z”.
Lots of EQ novels suffer from padding in their midsections, where nothing happens. EQ authority Francis M. Nevins dubs this the “Hollow Center”. The Chinese Orange Mystery suffers from this.
You can get the whole plot of the book by reading the opening (Chapters 1-4) then skipping to the solution (Chapter 17).
The solution is incredibly surreal, like much of Queen.
May 14th, 2017 at 9:48 am
Thanks Steve and Mike.
Now that I’ve read your comments, I won’t go out of my way to get any more of the full-length Queens. Though I might pick up any that show up on public library $0.50 cart. The same is true of the Drury Lane mysteries, I guess.
I now will check out a collection of the EQ short stories, Mike. Literally check out…from the L.A. Public Library (LAPL).
May 14th, 2017 at 10:55 am
Searching the LAPL catalog, I realized I read “Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack The Ripper” when I was in high school or just after. I thought it was okay, but somewhat resented the thinness of the Holmes characterization and atmosphere compared to richness of Conan Doyle’s writing.
May 14th, 2017 at 11:10 am
The original title for this one was A STUDY IN TERROR. It was the novelization of the film of the same title. According to Hubin: “Ellery Queen is added to the print version in the ‘framing story’; Ellery Queen sequences written by Dannay & Lee; Sherlock Holmes sequences primarily by Paul W. Fairman, with Dannay-Lee input.”
I don’t believe that Fairman was ever considered as anything more than a less than average writer, and I think that goes a long way in explaining why you thought the Holmes portion of the book was so weakly done.