Queen, Ellery - The House of Brass (1968)

This is a sequel to Inspector Queen's Own Case (1956) and follows the same pattern -- with Ellery away, the retired Richard Queen is called into a bizarre situation where murder takes place. His new wife Jessie is summoned to the House of Brass, a rundown estate in upstate New York, to meet the owner, Hendrik Brass -- and the invitation is sweetened with a $100 bill and half of a $1000. On arrival the Queens find themselves surrounded by an odd assortment of other guests -- a couple of confidence tricksters, an altruistic doctor, a repressed spinster, a young girl from Wyoming and a veteran of the Vietnam War. These are all comparatively normal, however, next to their blind and ageing host and his macrocephalic butler Hugo. They are there, Brass informs them, so that he can decide which of them to leave his vast fortune to. And there they stay, for what seems like a long time, before very much happens.

Things get more interesting after Brass summons a hardboiled lawyer-bodyguard with the intriguing name of Vaughn Vaughn. Brass draws up his will, distributing the money evenly to all his invited guests, and -- unsurprisingly -- is murdered soon afterwards. The local police chief is out of his depth. The questions for Richard Queen remain Who killed Brass? and Where is his fortune hidden? Queen calls in his old ex-police cronies, and a variety of stratagems are tried, but they all end in failure as the house is pulled down around their ears. A partial solution is obtained, but only Ellery, returning in the last chapter, can fully unscramble the mystery and uncover the culprit.

As a fan of Inspector Queen -- particularly his TV portrayal by David Wayne -- I enjoyed seeing him in action, but the contrived nature of the mysteries made it hard to take the detection seriously. When solving a mystery involves guessing at the mental processes of a madman it becomes too much of a lottery. Also -- spoiler warning -- wasn't it time by 1968 to retire the old cliche about fortunes that turn out not to be fortunes after all?

An enjoyable read, nonetheless.

Jon.