World War II hero Davy Fox has returned to his New England hometown of Wrightsville a changed man. When his wife Linda wakes up to find Davy's hands squeezed around her neck, it takes all of her strength to get away. But Davy is more than shellshocked from the war. He's haunted by events of twelve years before, when his mother was murdered by his father, Bayard, who is serving life in prison and had always insisted that he was not the one who killed his wife. Linda hopes that if Davy's father could be proved innocent, it might clear the conscience of her young, angry war hero husband, saving her marriage and herself. She suggests to Davy that they seek out Ellery Queen, a New York writer whom she remembers successfully solved a previous Wrightsville mystery. For Queen, the case is a long shot: with his only witnesses people closely connected to the victim, and Queen's only clue Bayard Fox's insistence of innocence, the clearest path leads back to the man already serving a life sentence. Determined to get to the truth of the matter, Queen returns to the house where the murder took place, a house preserved down to the smallest detail precisely as it had been when the tragedy struck. And here he finds the clues that blast the case wide open.
World War II hero Davy Fox has returned to his New England hometown of Wrightsville a changed man. When his wife Linda wakes up to find Davy's hands squeezed around her neck, it takes all of her strength to get away. But Davy is more than shellshocked from the war. He's haunted by events of twelve years before, when his mother was murdered by his father, Bayard, who is serving life in prison and had always insisted that he was not the one who killed his wife. Linda hopes that if Davy's father could be proved innocent, it might clear the conscience of her young, angry war hero husband, saving her marriage and herself. She suggests to Davy that they seek out Ellery Queen, a New York writer whom she remembers successfully solved a previous Wrightsville mystery. For Queen, the case is a long shot: with his only witnesses people closely connected to the victim, and Queen's only clue Bayard Fox's insistence of innocence, the clearest path leads back to the man already serving a life sentence. Determined to get to the truth of the matter, Queen returns to the house where the murder took place, a house preserved down to the smallest detail precisely as it had been when the tragedy struck. And here he finds the clues that blast the case wide open.
Über den Autor
Ellery Queen is both the name of a fictional detective and the pen name of two cousins-Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee-who revolutionized the mystery genre. Masters of the intellectual whodunit, they introduced readers to a world of puzzles, clues, and razor-sharp deduction with their debut novel The Roman Hat Mystery in [...] decades, Ellery Queen became synonymous with classic American detective fiction-crafting stories that blended brain-teasing plots with literary flair. Their works not only entertained but also invited readers to match wits with the detective himself, pioneering the "Challenge to the Reader" tradition.Beyond novels, the Ellery Queen legacy extended into radio, television, short stories, and mystery editing, influencing generations of crime writers. With a career rooted in logic, style, and suspense, Ellery Queen remains one of the most celebrated and enduring names in the history of mystery fiction.
