Customer Reviews

Ten Days' Wonder

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This book, coupled with the book that follows it, Cat of Many Tails, are the best detective novels I have ever read. Not only are the plots carefully constructed, but the level of characterization is nearly unparalleled in the detective genre. This is one of the riskiest mystery series novels ever written, and one that stands up to substantial rereading. Buy it. Read it. You won't be sorry.

In my opinion of course. Ellery Queen fans are kind of divided between those who love the technically intricate whodunits of Ellery's earlier career and the more psychological and introspective mysteries of the later era, but I love them both. This is one of the latter ones.

An old friend of Ellery, Howard Van Horn approaches him seeking help. He's been suffering blackouts and fears he may have committed a crime during one of them. Ellery follows him to Howard's New England hometown of Wrightsville - a town that Ellery knows very well, for twice Ellery has been there, and each time Ellery's a murder has occured for him to solve.

Already uneasy, Ellery meets Dietriech Van Horn, Howard's father, and Sally, the old man's very much younger and very attractive wife. As Ellery gets more involved with the Van Horns, and a series of odd, almost irrational crimes happens, his intution tells him one thing - there's definitely murder in the air, and he may be powerless to stop it.

"Ten Days' Wonder" is, in my estimation, Ellery Queen's best novel. It completely overwhelmed me the first time I read it, and it is a novel that not only delves into the secret lives hidden beneath small-town exteriors but also into the very heart of Ellery's own psychology. The clues are before the reader - all fair, no hiding - but when you and Ellery think you've got the solution, a final, delicious, deadly twist and a nasty surprise awaits both at the end. An ending that a friend of mine has described as feeling as if someone had sideswiped you with a nightstick. A high-water mark in the series.

EQ is of course one of the great fictional detectives from the 30's-50's, but even he isn't infallible and that does lift this 3rd Wrightsville novel (after CALAMITY TOWN and THE MURDERER IS A FOX) above average. A friend appears in dishevelled shape at Ellery's New York apartment after a recurrent and sporadic spell of amnesia. Ellery follows him to the friend's home town of Wrightsville, a community Ellery has already visited twice, and within days, gets involved with a blackmail threat and worse. This is good Queen, although not quite among the best.