The Dragon's Teeth and Calamity Town [Paperback]

Ellery Queen (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 445 pages
• Publisher: Signet Double Mystery (May 1, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451092082
• ISBN-13: 978-0451092083
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,063,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A Little Romance, a Reclusive Millionaire, and Murder, August 8, 2006

By 

Michael Wischmeyer (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dragon's Teeth and Calamity Town (Paperback)

The Dragon's Teeth (1939) dates from a transition period, roughly 1936 thru 1939, in which a romantic element often intrudes upon the murder plot itself. Another common feature of Ellery Queen mysteries of this period is a fascination with millionaires (perhaps due in part to the lingering economic depression).

In this story, The Dragon's Teeth, Ellery's partner in his detective agency (that's right, Ellery has gone commercial) has an on-off romance with a murder suspect. The murder victim is a Howard Hughes-like millionaire that has remained in hiding for nearly twenty years at sea on his yacht.

Calamity Town (1942) is the first of four mysteries that take place in Wrightsville. The setting is in upstate New York, although the exact location of Wrightsville remains unclear.

Ellery Queen, hoping for anonymity and some quiet time for writing, has rented a house in Wrightsville under the name Ellery Smith. The town appears ideal - attractive homes, friendly people, and little crime. The writer Ellery Smith is quickly embraced by the community, especially by the founding family of Wrightsville. All is tranquil, that is, until a series of arsenic poisonings earns Wrightsville the name Calamity Town.

Calamity Town falls chronologically in the middle phase of the Ellery Queen canon and differs considerably from his earlier mysteries. Several chapters are devoted to an extended courtroom scene that, I believe, is unique to this EQ story. Ellery himself even takes the stand.

Ellery's somewhat one-dimensional character is now more fully developed, more complex, more realistic. Unexpectedly, Ellery even becomes romantically involved with an attractive, quick witted, and independent young woman.

This atypical Ellery Queen mystery makes good reading. Calamity Town has often been reprinted and should not be difficult to locate. Likewise, The Dragon's Teeth can be found in various paperback editions. I have an older, somewhat yellowed, 1971 reprint by Signet Book from New American Library. I also have a May, 1980 paperback, a Signet Double Mystery containing both The Dragon's Teeth (1939) and Calamity Town (1942).