Queen, Ellery - The Glass Village

The novel was influenced by the realist school, and is discussed in that article. It has a relatively simple plot for an EQ book, and its mystery ideas derive ultimately from Crofts' The Cask (1920). The novel is an attack on McCarthyism; its cultural background is discussed in the article on Charlotte Armstrong.

Mike Grost

"Breathtakingly readable," writes Francis Nevins in his study of the works of Ellery Queen, "makes it impossible to think of 'middle America' without a shudder."

Clearly conveived as an attack on fifties McCarthyism, The Glass Village concerns the murder of a wealthy 91-year-old "Grandma Moses" style artist in her home in Shinn Corners, a tiny New England hamlet of some three dozen men, women and children. The ignorant, Commie- hating boob hicks of the hamlet target that old favorite,the "passing tramp" (a "furrin" one to boot!) with the crime. After they refuse to surrender the tramp to the proper authorities, an armed confrontation with the state looks imminent, until the hamlet's local patrician liberal, Judge Shinn, cooks up the idea of conducting an obviously illegal trial, so that the likely inevitable guilty verdict can be overturned on appeal.

Over half the book is devoted to this trial. When it looks like there may be a hung jury, the locals decide to commence them a lynching; but, rather implausibly (even Nevins admits this), the blood-lusting boob locals are pacified when one of two holdout jury members (a visiting Shinn relative, a disillusioned Korean War veteran) announces he has solved the case and that the tramp is innocent. The last part is a flash foreward to the two Shinns talking it all over.

This novel starts well, with some excellent naturalism in the portrayal of this dying, backwater hamlet; but in my opinion it topples over into the absurd with the trial section. I simply can't believe that the state would have allowed such nonsense to go on. The tonal shifts are drastic. As someone else on the net has commented, the book starts off as "Our Town," becomes "The Lottery," and finishes as "Twelve Angry Men." I think it illustrates a problem often found in Ellery Queen's more serious books: they tend to have absurd elements that clash with the would-be realism.

So, how is the mystery? Nevins think it quite brilliant. I can't say I share his opinion. It seems rather simple, especially for a master like Queen. I was rather disappointed with the identity of the actual culprit, because I felt it was no surprise.

I think The Glass Village is of more interst as a novel than as a puzzle, but it would have made a better novel had Queen adhered to a more subtle, realistic approach. The Judge makes an excellent character, rather reminiscent of certain William Faulkner types from the same period. The ancient artist, Fanny Adams, is a wonderful character as well, but of course she gets murdered. The other dwellers in Shinn Corners are just stereotypes, of a particularly repellent sort, with the exception of the capital punishment opposing minister. I don't know about "Middle America" in general, but you will be glad to leave Shinn Corners!

Curt