About This Book
In this classic mystery from the Grand Master Edgar Award–winning author, a small town judge and war veteran join together to solve a small town murder.
Homicide has never had a place in Shinn Corners. This backwater New England hamlet has seen three unlawful deaths in its 250-year history: infanticide in 1739, a political killing in the 1860s, and a forgettable murder some fifteen years ago. In his long tenure on the bench, Judge Lewis Shinn has hardly seen any violent crime at all. His nephew, Johnny, is happy to settle in such a quiet place. After fighting in the Korean and Second World Wars, he's seen enough bloodshed to last a lifetime. On returning to Shinn Corners, however, he learns that death has followed him home.
When the town's only celebrity, landscape painter Fanny Adams, is killed with a fireplace poker, suspicion falls on a foreign stranger who recently passed through. As mob rule threatens to corrupt the stranger's trial, Johnny will fight for justice—and learn the chilling truth about his Yankee neighbors.
Praise for Ellery Queen:
"Ellery Queen clearly is, after Poe, the most important American in mystery fiction." —Otto Penzler, editor of The Best American Mystery Stories
"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, author of Nine Times Nine
