Sun 26 Apr 2026
PI Mystery Diary Review: ELLERY QUEEN – Kiss and Kill.
Posted by Steve under Uncategorized[6] Comments
ELLERY QUEEN – Kiss and Kill. PI Barney Burgess. Ghost-written by Charles W. Runyon. Dell, paperback original; 1st printing, April 1969. Cover art by Robert McGinnis.
The opening is meant to grab you, and it does A man looks up from his work to find his wife missing from the kitchen, and a search of the neighborhood leads nowhere. The police cannot help, and the man turns to private eye Barney Burgess. The pace then shifts, noticeably so. Events hurtle along, coming faster and faster. There is a villain, one (if I may say so) who crosses the line of reality, and one who is all the more chilling for it. There is also money that corrupts, plus the twist that comes at the end.
Barney Burgess is a typical PI as a character, one I think modeled after Humphrey Bogart. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) He may have been more adventurous in this one, but he is who he is. Only minor flashes of the Queen style are present, sorry to say.
The beginning, though, could have led to so many wonderfully mysterious endings. This one, following as it does the fates of the hapless members of a Mexican tourist party, may or may not be one of them. Me? More like brutal.
Rating: ***
April 27th, 2026 at 5:07 am
These ghost-written PBOs stray far from the typical EQ novel, both in plot and execution, many of them bringing back a sense of pure pulp. Quick and efficient reads, but little that was memorable. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. And it helped provide a steady income, I’m sure.
April 27th, 2026 at 11:24 am
Right you are on all counts, I think, Jerry. I was wondering what I knew about the fact that the book was ghostwritten back then when I wrote this review, but the reference to the “Queen style” suggests that I did know something about what was going on. The reason behind it was financial, I’m sure, but I won’t say anything more. I’d only be guessing.
April 27th, 2026 at 12:27 pm
I went on a Charles Runyon kick in the late ’90s, scrounged up all of his six Gold Medal book from dealers via snail mail. I imagine I would have added this one too had I known it was actually a Runyon.
April 27th, 2026 at 2:14 pm
I was in touch with Runyan about 20 years ago while doing a post on him for the M*F website. It consists of an interview Ed Gorman did with him, along with an illustrated bibliography for him that he added comments to. Here’s the link:
https://www.mysteryfile.com/Runyon/Interview.html
I always thought he was a good (but not great) writer. He might have become a contender if perhaps he had gotten a couple of big breaks along the way, but they never seemed to happen.
April 27th, 2026 at 1:06 pm
I always liked the McGinnis cover on KISS AND KILL. “Ellery Queen” was ghosted in the late 1960s and 1970s by a number of writers. Apparently, they wrote those paperbacks based on outlines.
April 27th, 2026 at 2:24 pm
Right you are. I have found (but have not yet taken the time to read in detail) a lengthily discussion of all of the “Ellery Queen” paperbacks they did like this. Here’s the link:
https://elleryqueen.us/paperback.html
Lots of good reading here!