Editing Ellery Queen (section)

==Fictional style==
The Queen novels are examples of "fair play" mysteries, a subgenre of the [[whodunit]] mystery in which the reader obtains the clues along with the detective and the mysteries are presented as intellectually challenging puzzles. These type of novels comprised what would later be known as the [[Golden age of detective fiction]] (Usually dated from 1920 to 1940 but some critics include the 1940s and even the 1950s).<ref name="Hubin2" /> Mystery writer [[John Dickson Carr]] called this subgenre "the grandest game in the world".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Carr |first1=John Dickson |title=The Door to Doom |publisher=International Polygonics Ltd. |year=1991 |isbn=978-1558821026 |editor-last=Greene |editor-first=Douglas G.}}</ref>

The first Ellery Queen book ''The Roman Hat Mystery'' established a reliable template: a geographic formula title (''The Dutch Shoe Mystery'', ''The Egyptian Cross Mystery'', etc.); an unusual crime; a complex series of clues and [[red herring]]s; multiple misdirected solutions before the final correct solution is revealed, and a cast of supporting characters including Ellery Queen, the detective, Queen's father Inspector Richard Queen and his irascible assistant Sergeant Thomas Velie. What became the best known part of the early Ellery Queen books was the "Challenge to the Reader", a single page near the end of the book, on which Queen, the detective, paused the narrative, directly addressed the reader, declared that they had now seen all the clues needed to solve the mystery, and only one solution was possible. According to Julian Symons, "The rare distinction of the books is that this claim is accurate. These are problems in deduction that do really permit of only one answer, and there are few crime stories indeed of which this can be said... Judged as exercises in rational deduction, these are certainly among the best detective stories ever written."<ref name="SYM">{{Cite book |last=Symons |first=Julian |title=Bloody murder; from the detective story to the crime novel |publisher=Mysterious Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0892964963 |edition=3rd |location= |pages=127–128}}</ref>
[[File:Challenge to the reader.png|thumb|429x429px|"Challenge to the Reader" in ''[[The Greek Coffin Mystery]]'']]

In many earlier books like ''The Greek Coffin Mystery'' and ''The Siamese Twin Mystery'', multiple solutions to the mystery are proposed, a feature that also showed up in later books such as ''Double, Double'' and ''Ten Days' Wonder''. Queen's "false solution, followed by the true" became a hallmark of the canon. Another stylistic element in many early books (notably ''The Dutch Shoe Mystery'', ''The French Powder Mystery'' and ''Halfway House'') is Queen's method of creating a list of attributes (the murderer is male, the murderer smokes a pipe, etc.) and comparing each suspect to these attributes, thereby reducing the list of suspects to a single name, often an unlikely one.<ref name="SS1">{{cite web| last=Andrews|first=Dale| title=If It's Tuesday This Must Be Belgium| url=http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2011/11/if-its-tuesday-this-must-be-belgium-or.html| publisher=SleuthSayers| date=2011-11-08| location=Washington, D.C.}}</ref><ref name=":2" />

By the late 1930s, when Ellery Queen, the fictional character, had moved to [[Hollywood, Los Angeles|Hollywood]] to try movie scriptwriting, the tone of the novels changed along with the detective's character. Romance was introduced, solutions began to involve more psychological elements, and the "Challenge to the Reader" vanished. The novels also shifted from mere puzzles to more introspective themes. The three novels set in the fictional [[New England]] town of Wrightsville even showed the limitations of Queen's methods of detection. Julian Symons said "Ellery... occasionally lost his father, as his exploits took place more frequently in the small town of Wrightsville... where his arrival as a house guest was likely to be the signal for the commission of one or more murders. Very intelligently, Dannay and Lee used this change in locale to loosen the structure of their stories. More emphasis was placed on personal relationships and less on the details of investigation."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Symons |first=Julian |title=Bloody murder; from the detective story to the crime novel |publisher=Faber and Faber |year=1972 |isbn=0-571-09465-1 |edition=1st |location=London |pages=149–150}}</ref>

In the 1950s and the 1960s, Dannay and Lee became more experimental, especially in the novels they wrote with other writers. ''The Player on the Other Side'' (1963), ghost-written with [[Theodore Sturgeon]], delves more deeply into motive than most Queen novels. ''And on the Eighth Day'' (1964), ghost-written with [[Avram Davidson]], is a religious allegory about [[fascism]].<ref name="Hubin2">{{Cite book |last=Hubin |first=Allen J. |title=Crime Fiction, 1749-1980: A Comprehensive Bibliography |publisher=Garland |year=1984 |isbn=0-8240-9219-8}}</ref>