The Roman Hat Mystery. Ellery Queen. (aka Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee) 1929. 239 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence: The dramatic season of 192- began in a disconcerting manner. Eugene O'Neill had neglected to write a new play in time to secure the financial encouragement of the intelligentsia; and as for the "low-brows," having attended play after play without enthusiasm, they had deserted the legitimate theatre for the more ingenuous delights of the motion picture palaces.
Premise/plot: The Roman Hat Mystery--the first in the Ellery Queen series--stars a father and son. Inspector Queen is a police inspector. Ellory Queen, the son, is a mystery writer and amateur detective. The crime in this murder mystery takes place during a Broadway show. The only clue they really have to work with--their biggest clue--is that the murder victim's top hat is missing. Since they didn't find the hat on or near the victim, or even at the theatre, someone either wore it out of the theatre or carried it out of the theatre. The theory goes that if you can trace down what happened to the hat, you'll find the murderer.
My thoughts: I found The Roman Hat mystery to be incredibly dull. Perhaps methodical would be the best way to phrase it in polite terms? Perhaps investigations are truly tedious and lack dramatic interest. Perhaps it is just a ton of paperwork and matter of fact, ho-hum questioning. But it was just so much to get through. And the pay off--to me--didn't seem worth it. Dare I say you could read the first two or three chapters and jump straight to the last chapter without missing anything??? You wouldn't miss fleshing out of any characters, that's for sure. And I would even say that the father and son aren't all that fleshed out either. Perhaps they are in later books? Or at least the son?
The book was first published in 1929. Expect the morals and values of 1929. In other words, certain things have not aged well at all. Certain descriptions and plot points are just what most people would call backward. I didn't notice this so much in the dull-as-dirt middle but in the big reveal, it's hard to miss.
© 2022 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
2 comments:
Oh what a shame that it was a disappointment! I read my first Ellery Queen recently, as an audiobook, and enjoyed it though the solution was pretty nonsensical. I'll avoid this one...
Oh wow, that was my first one by this author, and I have to say, I enjoyed it a lot, maybe it works better as audio? I had an amazing narrator: https://wordsandpeace.com/2022/10/26/my-top-8-books-for-the-1929-club/
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