 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 | 1938 |
| Media type | |
| Preceded by | The Devil to Pay |
| Followed by | The Dragon's Teeth |
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.
At the end of the previous Ellery Queen novel, The Devil to Pay , he was in Hollywood and about to meet studio boss Jacques Butcher. At the beginning of this novel, he does so. Butcher, who is engaged to starlet Bonnie Stuart, hires Queen to work on a screenplay about Bonnie's mother, film legend Blythe Stuart, and her long-running feud with fellow Hollywood veteran Jack Royle. The two were once sweethearts, but their estrangement was bitter, and the feud now extends to their respective children -- Bonnie Stuart and young actor Ty Royle.
Surprisingly, Jack and Blythe agree to star in the film about their lives. Even more surprisingly, they suddenly rekindle their old romance and get married in front of fans at a Los Angeles airfield. Then, amid huge publicity, they fly off toward a honeymoon island. But the biggest surprise comes a few hours later, when the newlyweds are found fatally poisoned aboard their plane. Queen must interrupt his script-writing to solve a murder case.
Ty and Bonnie vacillate between feuding and a sudden romantic interest, and Queen investigates the mysterious mailings of playing cards that may hold a clue about the killings. His suspicions fall upon the households of Jack and Blythe, and Ty and Bonnie become suspicious of each other. It's only when Queen learns the true meanings of the cards that he solves the case. In the process, he forms a romantic attachment with beautiful gossip columnist Paula Paris, whose agoraphobia keeps her confined to her palatial home, but who has a talent for uncovering secrets that may match Queen's own.
(See Ellery Queen.) After many popular mystery novels and a number of 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 earlier novels, and takes him to Hollywood, where he becomes involved with both screenwriting and romance. "It's fair to say that the Hollywood novels made a pleasant read, but nothing more. ... Marvellously twisted plotting a throwback to the earlier Queens, with the final revelations fairly deducible from the clues." [1]
The novel was adapted into a stage play by writer William Roos using the pen name William Rand in 1949. [2]
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 cases. From 1929 to 1971, Dannay and Lee wrote around forty novels and short story collections in which Ellery Queen appears as a character.
Clayton Rawson was an American mystery writer, editor, and amateur magician. His four novels frequently invoke his great knowledge of stage magic and feature as their fictional detective The Great Merlini, a professional magician who runs a shop selling magic supplies. He also wrote four short stories in 1940 about a stage magician named Don Diavolo, who appears as a minor character in one of the novels featuring The Great Merlini. "Don Diavolo is a magician who perfects his tricks in a Greenwich Village basement where he is frequently visited by the harried Inspector Church of Homicide, either to arrest the Don for an impossible crime or to ask him to solve it."
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.
Linda O. Johnston is an American author of mystery and romance novels.
William Theodore Link was an American film and television screenwriter and producer who often worked in collaboration with Richard Levinson.
The Maze Agency is an American mystery comic book series created by Mike W. Barr and first professionally published in 1988. It revolves around a pair of detectives and their adventures solving puzzling murders. The Maze Agency was a 1989 nominee for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards for Best New Series.
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 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 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.
Mapback is a term used by paperback collectors to refer to the earliest paperback books published by Dell Books, beginning in 1943. The books are known as mapbacks because the back cover of the book contains a map that illustrates the location of the action. Dell books were numbered in series. Mapbacks extend from #5 to at least #550; then maps became less of a fixed feature of the books and disappeared entirely in 1951. The occasional number in the series between #5 and #550 contains no map, but some sort of full-page graphic or text connected with the book's contents.
The Finishing Stroke is a mystery novel by Ellery Queen, published in 1958. Extremely complex and with many baroque touches, it is something of a throwback to the original Ellery Queen novels of the late 1920s and early 1930s, unlike the more realistic mysteries of Queen's later period. It is set in New York state at three different times in the 20th century: early 1905; the Christmas-New Year's holidays of 1929-1930; and midsummer 1957.
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 Devil To Pay is a novel that was published in 1938 by Ellery Queen. It is a mystery novel primarily set in Los Angeles, United States. The 1941 film, Ellery Queen and the Perfect Crime, was loosely based on this novel.
The Dragon's Teeth is a mystery novel published in 1939 featuring the popular fictional character Ellery Queen, which is also the pseudonym of the book's authors, Daniel Nathan and Manford (Emanuel) Lepofsky. It is primarily set in New York City, United States.
There Was an Old Woman is a novel published in 1943 by Ellery Queen, byname of American writers Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay. It is a mystery novel primarily set in New York City, US.
The King Is Dead is a mystery novel by American authors Manfred Lee and Frederic Dannay, writing as Ellery Queen. Published in 1952, it is set primarily on a fictional island, but also partly in Wrightsville, a fictional small town in the northeastern United States that figures in several Queen stories.
The Scarlet Letters is an English language novel published in 1953 by American author Ellery Queen. It is a mystery novel set primarily in New York City.
Audrey Roos (1912–1982) was an American writer who, with her husband William Roos, co-authored many mystery novels, short stories, and plays. The wife-husband team, under the pseudonym Kelley Roos, often wrote romantic suspense novels featuring a married pair of sleuths, Jeff and Haila Troy, who lived in New York City. Some of their work appeared under their own names, Audrey and William Roos, rather than under the pseudonym. In 1956 they wrote Speaking of Murder, a play produced at the Royale Theatre in New York. Their television adaptation of The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1961.
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine Game is a board game published by Mayfair Games in 1986 in which players use deduction to solve mysteries similar to those in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.