Queen, Ellery

(Frederic Dannay, US, 1905–82, and Manfred Bennington Lee, US, 1905–71) Dannay and Lee, cousins, began writing in the 1920s as Ellery Queen, pseudonymous author and, as Inspector Queen, protagonist of their many stories. Begin with The American Gun Mystery (1933), set in the world of modern rodeos, which typifies their work in setting a puzzle which an astute reader may solve from information provided. In The King is Dead (1952) Queen has a dangerous brush with the secret services during a murder investigation. Double Double (1950) finds Inspector Queen in a small New England town after he receives a press cutting concerning the death of an eldery eccentric. In 1941 Dannay and Lee founded Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which became the major forum for shorter crime fiction until it ceased publication in 1982.

Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler  DH