Ellery Queen leaps into action when a jet-setter is murdered in Wrightsville
From New Year’s in Málaga to Christmas in Hawaii, John Levering Benedict III—or Johnny-B, as everyone calls him—is the crown prince of the jet set. He has 3 ex-wives, a limitless fortune, and more frequent flier miles than he can count. When Johnny-B tires of life in the sky, he sneaks off to a quiet corner of New England called Wrightsville, where he has purchased a cozy little hideaway. This 2nd home draws him to Ellery Queen—and soon leads Johnny-B to his unfortunate demise.
When the wealthy globetrotter invites the great detective to spend a weekend in Wrightsville, the site of Ellery’s most legendary triumphs, he also invites his 3 ex-wives. After announcing that he is amending his will for the benefit of an unnamed lover, Johnny-B is murdered, and it falls to Ellery Queen to name the woman who brought this shooting star back down to earth.
Ellery Queen was a pen name created and shared by two cousins, Frederic Dannay (1905–1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905–1971), as well as the name of their most famous detective. Born in Brooklyn, they spent forty-two years writing, editing, and anthologizing under the name, gaining a reputation as the foremost American authors of the Golden Age “fair play” mystery. Although eventually famous on television and radio, Queen’s first appearance came in 1928, when the cousins won a mystery-writing contest with the book that would eventually be published as The Roman Hat Mystery. Their character was an amateur detective who uses his spare time to assist his police inspector uncle in solving baffling crimes. Besides writing the Queen novels, Dannay and Lee cofounded Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, one of the most influential crime publications of all time. Although Dannay outlived his cousin by nine years, he retired Queen upon Lee’s death.