Customer Reviews

The Egyptian Cross Mystery

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I quite enjoyed The Egyptian Cross Mystery. I developed several plausible solutions, but none which I could clearly prove through a sequence of logical deductions. I had possibilities, I had partial solutions, and I had pieces of evidence, but I was unable to establish an irrefutable chain of logic. And as fans of Ellery Queen know, deduction requires the application of impeccable logic. For the record: none of my possibilities, nor partial solutions, were correct. I was surprised by the solution.

The Egyptian Cross Mystery offers a fast-paced unpredictable plot, a plethora of eccentric characters, and brilliant deductions by Ellery himself. I give it five stars.

The Egyptian Cross Mystery is a good introduction to Ellery Queen. In this fifth novel the young Ellery Queen can still be insufferable on occasion, although the presence of his college professor, Dr. Yardley, checks his impulse to exhibit his erudition. Ellery remains baffled by the bizarre murders as does the reader. A final clue hidden among detail suddenly provides Ellery, and the particularly observant reader (not me, however), the key to the mystery. Stay alert for the final clue, despite deliberate distractions and misdirection.

Ellery Queen's investigations take him on long, tiring road trips in his beloved Duesenberg. Each destination is a gruesome murder site. A decapitated victim is found lashed to a post. A capital letter T is scrawled in blood nearby. Using more guesswork than logic, Ellery senses some obscure connection to ancient Egyptian myth.

I always enjoy the early Ellery Queen stories, those mysteries dating from 1929 through 1939. My other early favorites, for comparison purposes, include The Greek Coffin Mystery, The Siamese Twin Mystery, The Spanish Cape Mystery, and two Drury Lane mysteries, The Tragedy of X and The Tragedy of Y.

Are the bizarre murders, beginning with a decapitation in an obscure West Virginia village, the acts of an ages-old religious cult or a revenge plot festering for decades? Ellery Queen travels thousands of miles, trying to anticipate the killer, until his quarry makes one final slip...

I think this is a good example of the Golden Age mystery, and typical for an Ellery Queen story.

The plot twists and turns and stretched my patience once in a while. I didn't find some things really feasable; however, it was an enjoyable read in the "they-don't-write-them-anymore" vein.

To anyone interested in the genre, the only question with regard to an Ellery Queen detective story is whether it is indeed by The Master, that is by the two Brooklyn cousins Dannay (as they chose to be known). We now know, that as popularity by their pseudonymous Ellery Queen name increased through radio and films, as well as through a mystery magazine and the mystery novels themselves, they employed other authors to write book in their name, and, still later, franchised the name to other authors. Some of these books are quite good, most quite acceptable, but they are not the genuine thing.

This 1932 book is an original which is archaic in no particular. It reads as if written in 2011 or any other year that the modern style has dominated. Beginning with a brutal murder in which the victim is beheaded and crucified, it moves rapidly through other murders in diverse settings. With his NYC Inspector father playing only a cameo role, young Ellery faces bafflement after bewilderment, finally to enlightenment. At that point, he offers his well-known challenge (of that period) to the Reader, to use the clues which Ellery will now elucidate, to arrive at the logical conclusion he has reached.

Aside from the stylish prose and appealing Master, there are an assortment of characters who capture one's interest and a plot which builds a convoluted structure on a few simple premises. My guess is that the literary intuition of the average reader will match Queen's logic in successfully discovering Who Dun It, in more than a few rare cases.

At any rate, it is an eminently-well written classic which any aficionado should have read.

I would have given this a higher rank but, as God is my witness, I just can't stand the way Ellery talks sometimes. And that Professor Yardley, his college mentor, is just as bad. In fact if Yardley is responsible for Ellery's affacted mannerisms, then he should be made a public example of. It's like James Stewart in ROPE and his evil effect on the two innocent boys John Dall and Farley Granger whom he turned into killers with his Nietzschean philosophy. Here it's Yardley's ridiculous circumlocutions and archaic oaths and painful bon mots.

The story puzzled me and i was genuinely surprised by how it came out, but after my glow of surprise I had second thoughts about the whole enterprise.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

It seems almost criminal that we had to waste so much time keeping up with the nudist colony and the convoluted love lives of the Brads amd the Lincolns and those British people. Chapter after chapter of just plain garbage, and none of it germane to the story or the plotting--just plain old padding. Padding's too good a word for it.

Also, Ellery and Yardley sure make a lot of deductions based on the "fact" that no man would put another man's pipe in his mouth if he could possibly help it. Where'd all this homosexual panic come from?

SPOILERS OVER.

I don't know what's more risible, but the hillbilly dialect is an insult to realism. But it's like reading Hemingway compared to the way the sailors talk. "What time did that happen, Cap'n Swift?" "Seven bells." "Oh, I see, eleven-thirty."

Nevertheless, I liked the bloody and grim Montenegro story, maybe because I'm a guy--seems like all the reviewers are male--a chromosomal thing? I wonder how Qyueen was actually able to get away with so much blood and guts--it's like TALES FROM THE CRYPT squared. More vomiting than you'd see on choppy waters on a liferaft. It's just swimming with fluids.