THE TRAGEDY OF X
New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1940. First Edition Thus. The first (and best) of the four novels written by Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee under the Barnaby Ross pseudonym, originally published by Viking in 1932 and re-issued by Stokes and Little, Brown between 1940-42. Detective and retired Shakespearean actur Drury Lane joins forces with NYPD Inspector Thumm to "investigate the murder of the much-despised stockbroker Harley Longstreet on a passenger-jammed crosstown trolley by means of a ball of cork riddle with poison-tipped needles. This is followed by a second murder, with one of the Longstreet suspects thrown from the upper deck of the Weehawken ferry and crushed to pulp as the boat pulls into its slip; and then by a third killing, carried out aboard a New Jersey communter train within a few feet of Lane himself" (Pronzini & Muller, pp.699-700). A Haycraft Queen Cornerstone title. Hubin, p.345. Item #5290
First Printing (and the first published under the Ellery Queen pseudonym). Octavo (21.25cm); hunter green cloth, with titles stamped in black on spine and front cover; dustjacket; iv,373,[3]pp. Trivial wear to spine ends and lower corner tips, light dust-soil to upper edge of textblock, else clean internally; Near Fine. Dustjacket is price-clipped, with modest wear to extremities, and several shallow nicks and small tears; Very Good.
Price: $250.00