 First US edition | |
| Author | Ellery Queen |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Ellery Queen mysteries |
| Genre | Mystery novel / Whodunnit |
| Publisher | Stokes (US) Gollancz (UK) |
Publication date | 1936 |
| Media type | |
| Preceded by | The Spanish Cape Mystery |
| Followed by | The Door Between |
Halfway House is a novel that was written in 1936 by Ellery Queen. It is a mystery novel primarily set in New Jersey, United States.
Joe Wilson was a poor, itinerant salesman with a pretty young wife in Philadelphia. Joseph Kent Gimball was a wealthy, socially prominent New Yorker with an elegant and aristocratic wife. These two very different men were actually the same man, a bigamist leading a bizarre double life. His deception was revealed to the world after he was murdered in his "halfway house," a riverfront shack outside Trenton, New Jersey, that he used as a hideout to switch identities. But who killed him?
Ellery Queen, who is drawn into the investigation to help old friends, is able to look beyond the strange nature of the victim to seek hard facts. He puts his finger on the central question: "Who was murdered -- Joe or Joseph?" Queen performs an extended feat of logical deduction from seemingly insignificant clues, such as a number of burnt matches, and finally develops a profile of the killer that can fit only one person in the case.
(See Ellery Queen.) After nine popular mystery novels and the first of many movies, the character of Ellery Queen was at this point firmly established. This period in the Ellery Queen canon signals a change in the type of story told, moving away from the intricate puzzle mystery format which had been a hallmark of the nine previous novels, each with a nationality in their title and a "Challenge to the Reader" immediately before the solution was revealed. "Halfway House" is the last novel wherein Queen issues his "Challenge," and it is the first without a "nationality title," although it is remarked in the foreword that the story could have been called The Swedish Match Mystery. "(Ellery Queen) gave up the Challenge and the close analysis of clues, and made Ellery a less omniscient and more human figure, in search of a wider significance and more interesting characterization. ... (The) first ten books represent a peak point in the history of the detective story between the wars." [1]
Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1928 by the American detective fiction writers Frederic Dannay (1905–1982) and Manfred Bennington Lee (1905–1971). It is also the name of their main fictional detective, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve baffling murder mysteries. Dannay and Lee wrote most of the novels and short story collections in which Ellery Queen appears as a character, and these books were among the most popular American mysteries published between 1929 and 1971. Under the pseudonym Ellery Queen, they also edited more than thirty anthologies of crime fiction and true crime. Dannay founded, and for many years edited, the crime fiction magazine Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which has been published continuously from 1941 to the present. From 1961 onwards, Dannay and Lee commissioned other authors to write thrillers using the pseudonym Ellery Queen, but not featuring Ellery Queen as a character; some such novels were juvenile and were credited to Ellery Queen Jr. They also wrote four mysteries under the pseudonym Barnaby Ross, which featured the detective Drury Lane. Several movies, radio shows, and television shows were based on their works.
Edward Dentinger Hoch was an American writer of detective fiction. Although he wrote several novels, he was primarily known for his vast output of over 950 short stories. He was one of the few America fiction writers of his generation who supported himself financially through short story publication, rather than novels or screenplays.
Ellery Queen is an American TV drama series, developed by Richard Levinson and William Link, who based it on the fictional character of the same name. The series ran for a single season on NBC from September 11, 1975, to April 4, 1976. Jim Hutton stars as the eponymous sleuth, along with David Wayne as his father, Inspector Richard Queen.
The Golden Age of Detective Fiction was an era of classic murder mystery novels of similar patterns and styles, predominantly in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Roman Hat Mystery is a novel that was written in 1929 by Ellery Queen. It is the first of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
The French Powder Mystery is a novel that was written in 1930 by Ellery Queen. It is the second of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
The Dutch Shoe Mystery is a novel which was written in 1931 by Ellery Queen. It is the third of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
The Greek Coffin Mystery is a 1932 novel by Ellery Queen. It is the fourth of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
The Egyptian Cross Mystery is a novel that was written in 1932 by Ellery Queen. It is the fifth of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
The American Gun Mystery is a novel that was written in 1933 by Ellery Queen. It is the sixth of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
The Siamese Twin Mystery is an English language American novel written in 1933 by Ellery Queen. It is the seventh of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
The Chinese Orange Mystery is a novel that was written in 1934 by Ellery Queen. It is the eighth of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
The Spanish Cape Mystery is a novel that was written by Ellery Queen as the ninth book of the Ellery Queen mysteries. Published in April in hardcover by Frederick A. Stokes, it also appeared as a "complete, book-length novel" in the April 1935 issue of Redbook.
The Lamp of God is a novella by Ellery Queen that was originally published in the Detective Story Magazine in 1935. Later, it was collected in the short story collection The New Adventures of Ellery Queen in 1940. Finally, it was published as a standalone book by Dell Books in 1950.
Banquets of the Black Widowers is a collection of mystery short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov featuring his fictional club of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in September 1984, and in paperback by the Fawcett Crest imprint of Ballantine Books in June 1986. The first British edition was issued by Grafton in August 1986.
The Door Between is a novel that was published in 1937 by Ellery Queen. It is a mystery novel primarily set in New York City, United States.
The Four of Hearts is a novel that was published in 1938 by Ellery Queen. It is a mystery novel primarily set in Los Angeles, United States.
Calamity Town is a mystery novel by American writers Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay, published in 1942 under the pseudonym of Ellery Queen. It is set in the fictional town of Wrightsville, a place that figures in several later Queen books.
Ten Days' Wonder is a novel that was published in 1948 by Ellery Queen. It is a mystery novel primarily set in the imaginary town of Wrightsville, United States.
The Adventures of Ellery Queen was a radio detective program in the United States. Several iterations of the program appeared on different networks, with the first one broadcast on CBS on June 18, 1939, and the last on ABC on May 27, 1948.
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