The Tragedy of Z: A Drury Lane Mystery

[a lovely copy with no significant wear, would be Fine but for a couple of very slightly scrunched lower page corners and a one-time owner's name plus date & place of purchase and brief comment on front endpaper; the jacket is nice-looking with only modest edgewear and some light soiling, although the verso reveals a previous owner's home-grown "restoration" treatments, consisting of extensive tape-reinforcement and a small amount of black ink "touch-up"]. The third entry in this tetralogy of mystery novels set in New York, featuring Drury Lane, "famous actor and criminal investigator, who, after retiring from the stage, lived in medieval splendor in his 'ancient' caste on the Hudson, and worked out his own theories of crime detection." This one concerns a double murder which takes place in a milieu of political corruption and prison graft. Retired Inspector Thumm (a recurring character in the series) has been looking into some of the fraudulent acitivities of one of the principals, and in turn called in Drury Lane, who for this case finds himself "partnered" with "an attractive and ingeniously deductive young girl," who happens to be Thumm's daughter. In a preface, the author explains that while the first two books ("X" and "Y") took place close together in time, more than ten years had elapsed between then and the events of "Z." Although it wasn't yet publicly known that "Barnaby Ross" and "Ellery Queen" were one and the same author (two cousins from Brooklyn), attentive readers would have picked up on the fact that "Ross" (in "X" and "Y" but apparently not here) employed the same "Challenge to the Reader" narrative device as "Queen" used in his early novels, that of presenting readers with all the known facts necessary for them to solve the mysteries themselves in advance of the book's protagonist. Reportedly, Dannay and Lee had some fun with their dual-dual pseudonyms at the time these books came out, appearing in a series of public debates in which Dannay impersonated "Ross" and Lee portrayed "Queen," both wearing masks to preserve their anonymity. (Although I've not seen it stated anywhere, it's possible that the character of Drury Lane and his "castle" may have been inspired by the actor William Gillette (1853-1937), famous for his stage portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, who constructed and lived in his retirement just such a dwelling, located on the Connecticut River.) Some years later, after the "Ross"/"Queen" masquerade was revealed, the four books in this group were reprinted under Queen's name; jacketed copies of the original "Ross" versions (even the G&D reprints) are exceedingly scarce. (The publisher of the first editions was the Viking Press, perhaps a calculated choice to further distance "Ross" from "Queen," who was published at that time by the Frederick A. Stokes Company.) NOTE that although this book bears only the 1933 copyright date, this particular printing likely dates from a few years later.

Product Info

Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap

Year: (c.1933)

Type: Used

Binding: Hardcover

Seller Info

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