The Tragedy of X (#1)
A retired Shakespearean actor plays his new role—amateur sleuth—after a murder in a New York streetcar.
Born during intermission in a seedy New Orleans playhouse, Drury Lane has spent the better part of his life in the theater. A majestic old-fashioned ham, he made his name in London, where his record-breaking run as Hamlet defined the role for a generation. When hearing loss forces him to retire, he turns his attention to human drama—specifically crime. Using his powers of disguise, knowledge of human nature, and an occasional dash of theatrical combat, Lane is the most fantastic detective of all time—onstage or off.
In The Tragedy of X, a man is poisoned in the middle of a crowded New York streetcar, and not one of the dozens of witnesses can provide any useful evidence. The police are stumped until they receive a letter from Lane, claiming to have solved the crime by reading newspaper reports. He knows the killer’s name—but now he has to catch him.
Originally published under the Barnaby Ross pen name, The Tragedy of X is one of Ellery Queen’s most beloved mysteries; though different in character and style from the Queen mysteries, its mixture of classical detection and an erudite sleuth makes for great Golden Age fare.
Reviews
“A first-rate mystery.”Observer
“The Viking Press has made no mistake in choosing this book as its first venture into the mystery field.”
"I read all of Ellery Queen's novels when I was a kid. And they were wonderful novels of deduction and they were wonderful pastimes. Wonderful puzzles and wonderful studies in character, and all of that. Wonderful examples of how to plot and misdirect and the whole nine yards...I liked the Drury Lane books, actually. THE TRAGEDY OF X, THE TRAGEDY OF Y, THE TRAGEDY of Z, and DRURY LANE'S LAST CASE. I enjoyed those a lot. But I read them all. I love them all. THE ROMAN HAT MYSTERY and so on. They were terrific. Well written. Well plotted. I mean, like the magazine, those stories were miles and miles ahead of the comptetition at the time, the Elre Stanley Gardners and even the Agatha Christies."Stephen King, on Ellery Queen
“A new Ellery Queen book has always been something to look forward to for many years now.”Agatha Christie
“Ellery Queen is the American detective story.”Anthony Boucher
“As an anthologist, Ellery Queen is without peer, his taste unequalled. As a bibliographer and a collector of the detective short story, Queen is, again, a historical personage. Indeed, Ellery Queen clearly is, after Poe, the most important American in mystery fiction.”Otto Penzler, Publisher of The Mysterious Press