The Dutch Shoe Mystery by Ellery Queen 1931
Ellery Queen’s third book published in 1931 was on the list of the 12 Classic Mystery Novels in the NYT’s Book Review’s 125th Anniversary Issue (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/books/classic-crime-novels-that-still-thrill-today.html), and a fine representative of this genre it is.
Queen is both the main character and the ‘writer’ of the novel. He’s a New York City dandy who lives with his father, NYPD’s Chief Inspector, and a man-servant on the Upper West Side (87th Street to be exact). Sporting his pince nez and walking stick as he taxis around the Manhattan of the 1920’s, Queen solves two murders with his fine sense of deductive logic.
The particulars of the fictional story are not as interesting as the real-life story of the authors. Ellery Queen is the nom de plume of two Brooklyn born Jewish guys who combined their already self-created professional names into the EQ sobriquet. Frederic Dannay was the professional name of Daniel Nathan (October 20, 1905 – September 3, 1982),[2] and Manfred Bennington Lee that of Emanuel Benjamin Lepofsky (January 11, 1905-April 3, 1971. Their efforts resulted in more than 30 novels and short story collections, movies, TV series, a mystery magazine and publishing house and several Edgar awards including one for Grand Master.
Though nearly 100 years old, this mystery novel has aged well and for those who like to pit their wits against the murderer, this is an excellent place to start. The author in an aside about three quarters of the way through the book even tells the reader that Ellery Queen has now established all the facts necessary to solve the crime and invites the reader to do so before the final unveiling of the truth. Not being much of an amateur sleuth myself, I didn’t take the invitation but still enjoyed Queen’s explanation of who carried out the murders, how, and why. A good read.
