The Chinese Orange Mystery: 0 (An American Mystery Classic) Paperback – 30 Nov. 2018

A very enjoyable read based on the Ellery Queen series of books, some of the views expressed are those of the 1940's and may be offensive. The plot will get your old grey cells working. I found it a enjoyable read

Classic EQ. Early titles are very catchyThe plot here, especially motive & how committed are very difficult to work outI don't even try, just read and enjoy.

An excellent book by a "King" of the detective genre. As usual, an ending with a most surprising suspect. It is a work I have wanted to read for a long time, and was delighted when I saw that it was recently published."Queen" books, especially the early numbers are always a joy to read Recommended!

As a confirmed Ellery Queen 'nut' of long standing. (I first read the books in my teens) I was very pleased to see that they were at last available in the Kindle store. This is a particularly fiendish example of the 'locked room' type of detective story. Not necessarily for lovers of 'realistic' detective fiction, but enjoyable as an example of the Golden Age of detective fiction.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penzler Publishing for a digital galley of this novel.Otto Penzler is reissuing mystery and detective fiction novels from the Golden Age of crime fiction through his American Mystery Classics series. I was glad to choose The Chinese Orange Mystery by Ellery Queen (actually cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee). This one was originally published in 1934 and is a very good example of the "fair-play" idea used to give readers all the clues they need to solve the crime problem presented in the story. In this one, between chapters 15 and 16, there is a section where the author tells the reader that at that point they could have picked up on all the clues necessary to solve the mystery. I had the "who" (guilty party) but only some pieces of the "why". Even so, I just wallowed in all this old fashioned goodness.The story concerns a dead man found in a room with a door opening into a hotel corridor. The hotel attendant outside in the corridor didn't see anyone enter the room during the time the murder must have been committed. That was bad enough for Inspector Queen and his son, Ellery, but what in the world did all the changes to the room and the corpse mean? Everything, every single thing in the room, was turned backwards. Solving this murder means the Queens have to touch on a lot of sensitive spots for the Kirk family with secrets being uncovered right and left.The Chinese Orange Mystery was a lot of fun to read. Combine this book with a comfortable place to sit, a good drink to satisfy your thirst, a little snack to satisfy your appetite, some quiet time away from "life" and you have the makings of a relaxing indulgence that will have you feeling really good!

The Ellery Queen stories follow a set path, with the same law enforcement characters, and the apparently impenetrable solution. The skill lies in creating a very complicated set of facts with a suggested solution after the reader has all the information.As with most other EQ stories, the solution in this book is too complicated and contrived.Despite that, it is an entertaining read.

I must have read my first Ellery Queen novel about 55 years ago and then read them all avidly. Strangely, I had never come across this title and it was a real joy to return to the world of the Queens (and of my early teens)!

Probably a book of its time. I didn't like the detective or find him interesting. Nor did I find the mystery particularly compelling.

My first Ellery Queen since childhood, when I read old copies of the magazine stored in a steamer trunk. Very cleverly put together with colorful characters and interesting interplay between Ellery the amateur detective and his father the policeman.

This is vintage Queen with all the lovely twists and turns.

Young Ellery Queen finds himself in a social situation with a family involved in publishing, stamp collection, and the collecting of antique jewelry. Ellery has to figure out which activity is relevant when a soft-spoken little man is murdered in an anteroom.The man’s clothes are all on backwards, and the furniture is turned around backwards. This is just the kind of obfuscation to appeal to Ellery’s obsessive thought processes.His investigation reveals family troubles and scandals, unveils an imposter, and saves a romance. His ruminations are highly secretive, and this drives his father, Inspector Queen, completely crazy. It tried my patience too. The Ellery Queen mysteries tend to have a tortuous drawn-out denouement, in which Ellery takes us though his deductions one by one and finally reveals the murderer.The plot is very clever, and the backwards clues turn out to have a practical purpose after all. I didn’t guess the murderer, but I didn’t try hard either. I just read these books for the fun of it.

If you're an Ellery Queen newbie, several recommendations: (1) Don't pay more than $1.99 for any of the novels. They go on and on and on and .... Unless you like wading through chapter after chapter of convoluted puzzles and Ellery's elaborately affected dialog, it gets old quickly. (2) Do buy the Ellery Queen short stories. They are tighter and better written, same dialog and puzzles but without the padding. This particular novel was neither better nor worse than I expected.

Just began reading this classic locked rooms mystery. It is off to a fascinating start. Just what I was hoping for.