Inside a run-down shack on the banks of the Delaware River, married Philadelphia door-to-door salesman Joe Wilson lies dying in a cheap, blood-spattered suit, stabbed through the heart by an assailant he describes with his last breath as a mysterious veiled woman. So begins master detective Ellery Queen's strangest case ever. For Joe Wilson is not one man, but two, each married secretly to a different wife - and in his other life, as New York millionaire Joseph Kent Gimball, he has just changed the beneficiary of a million-dollar life insurance policy. With painstaking brilliance Ellery Queen sifts through a plethora of clues to solve the riddle of the Halfway House murder, beginning with the most important question of all: Whom did the murderer think she was killing, impoverished Wilson or millionaire Gimball? And why?
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Editorial Reviews
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‘Ellery Queen is the American detective story’ – Anthony Boucher, ‘A new Ellery Queen book has always been something to look forward to for many years now’ – Agatha Christie, ‘He has done far more for the detective story than any other two men put together’ – Margery Allingham, ‘They have raised exactitude and efficiency to the degree of brilliance, and fair play to the point of turpitude. In their group there is no one to touch them’ – Ngaio Marsh, ‘I am grateful for the opportunity of adding my name to the long list of those who have so much admired and enjoyed Ellery Queen’s writings’ – Freeman Wills Crofts
--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.About the Author
Ellery Queen was both a famous fictional detective and the pen name of two cousins born in Brooklyn in 1905. Created by Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay as an entry in a mystery-writing contest, Ellery Queen is regarded by many as the definitive American whodunit celebrity. When their first novel, The Roman Hat Mystery (1929), became an immediate success, the cousins gave up their business careers and took to writing dozens of novels, hundreds of radio scripts and countless short stories about the gentleman detective and writer who shared an apartment on West 87th Street with his father, Inspector Queen of the NYPD. Dannay was said to have largely produced detailed outlines of the plots, clues and characters while Lee did most of the writing. As the success of Ellery Queen grew, the character's legacy continued through radio, television and film. In 1941, the cousins founded Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Edited by Queen for more than forty years, the periodical is still considered one of the most influential crime fiction magazines in American history. Additionally, Queen edited a number of collections and anthologies, and his critical writings are the major works on the detective short story. Under their collective pseudonym, the cousins were given several Edgar awards by the Mystery Writers of America, including the 1960 Grand Master Award. Their novels are examples of the classic 'fair play' whodunit mystery of the Golden Age, where plot is always paramount. Manfred B. Lee, born Manford Lepofsky, died in 1971. Frederic Dannay, born Daniel Nathan, died in 1982.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dazzling Deductions by Ellery Queen - Halfway House is a Classic,
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This review is from: Halfway House (Paperback)
Halfway House (1936) ranks among the best of Ellery Queen, offering more realism than typically found in his mysteries. The setting for murder is an abandon house near a sewage disposal plant along the eastern shore of the Delaware River in Trenton, New Jersey. It is the fifth year of economic depression, marked by a growing anger and resentment directed at the wealthy class. This seamy murder pits a struggling family against wealth, aristocracy and political influence.Ellery Queen is now about ten years out of school. He still drives his aging Duesenberg, and he has not completely shed his penchant for making literary references. His growing reputation for his deductive skills has reached Trenton, allowing him to participate with the local authorities in the murder investigation. Although the Ellery Queen mysteries are now many decades old, they remain very entertaining. These mystery puzzles are among the best ever created, are quite challenging (but possible to solve), and yet are always imminently fair. The Halfway House plot provides a fair number of surprises, including the unexpected solution. Ellery Queen's logic is impeccable as he steps the reader through his deductions in the conclusion. Halfway House has only five chapters: The Tragedy, The Trail, The Trial, The Trap, and The Truth. I may be mistaken, but I believe that other than Calamity Town (1942), Halfway House is the only story in which the Ellery actually participates in courtroom proceedings. A word on gas prices: At one point in the trial a witness (a gas station attendant) testifies that the defendant purchased five gallons of gas, tossed him a dollar bill, and hurriedly drove away without waiting for change. Halfway House was first published in Hearst's International Cosmopolitan magazine in June, 1936. It was published in hardback a month later, but a paperback version (Pocket Books) was not available until 1944. Halfway House was the eleventh Ellery Queen story. My copy is a Signet paperback issued in 1971.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ellery Queen is his "classic" phase,
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This review is from: Halfway House (Kindle Edition)
This was the first Ellery Queen novel that didn't have a nationality in the title. Despite this, it has much more in common with these earlier stories than the later ones beginning with Calamity Town. In the present book, Queen is still very much in his "who done it" stage rather than his later "why done it" stage.But it need make no apology for this. The puzzle the reader is invited to unravel is well up to Queen's (and anyone else's) high standards. Very effective is the trial sequence in the middle of the book. Queen still struggles somewhat with characterization. None are particularly deep. The worst, of course, is Ellery Queen himself. He gives Philo Vance a run for his money as the most annoying detective ever published. Later books would round Queen out considerably making him more human and fallible. The Kindle edition is error free. There is no table of contents, linked or otherwise, but this is no big deal since there are only five chapters which are pre-marked. Highly recommended for fans of the classic mystery where the how and who are be all and end all.
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