Showing results by narrator "Mark Peckham" in All Categories

In one of his earliest cases, Ellery Queen confronts a murder in blue blood. From the very beginning, the Khalkis case struck a somber note. It began, as was peculiarly harmonious in the light of what was to come, with the death of an old man. Georg Khalkis, internationally famous art dealer and collector, died of heart failure. After his funeral, his attorney found that the will was missing and immediately called in the district attorney. When Inspector Queen and his son, Ellery, are brought in to solve the mystery, Ellery mentions the one place they have not searched for the will: the coffin.

With nearly 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce, a growing percentage of women over age 40 choosing not to have children, and more than three percent of the population identifying as LGBT, modern life is clearly in need of some modern relationship advice. Sex from Scratch analyzes the facets of contemporary relationships through the struggles, opinions, and experiences of a diverse group of individuals living in nontraditional relationships.

In New York City in the early 1930s, a man is poisoned on a crowded streetcar during rush hour. Everyone sees Longstreet die - but no one sees the killer. Inspector Thumm's few clues all lead up a blind alley. He finally seeks the aid of Drury Lane - retired Shakespearean actor, master of disguise, and amateur sleuth. Seated amid the splendor of the vast medieval halls of his castle on the Hudson, Drury Lane hears the story from the inspector.

When Ellery Queen first meets the award-winning novelist Karen Leith, it is at a party held to celebrate her most recent prize in literature. The next time he hears of her, she is dead - murdered, so the police suspect, by the daughter of her fiancé, the eminent cancer researcher Dr. John MacClure. With no other suspects and only circumstantial evidence at hand, master detective Ellery Queen delves into the reclusive writer's past to uncover the startling method and motive of an intricate crime.

It was a script that could only have come from Hollywood: the wedding of two superstars after a scandal-filled courtship... a wild trip by private plane to a hideaway... a deadly double overdose of drugs... These corpses weren't play-acting. Once again, Ellery was cast in the role of master detective, as he found nothing was quite what it seemed in the never-never land of moviedom - except sudden, violent death...

Once upon an evil time, there was a wicked old woman with a mammoth shoe company worth many millions of dollars, a henpecked husband, and six miserable children. Then one day death came visiting the vast Potts mansion - and began claiming its inhabitants one by one. It was then that Ellery Queen was invited to sup on this nightmare brew of diabolical murder and baffling mystery - in a case that made the most horrific crimes in his entire career seem like fairy tales. As he endeavors to solve the case, he tries to make sense of this family that defies rationality.

Frightfully rich and awesomely respectable, the McKells had never been touched by scandal. At least, not until the handsome Dane McKell discovered his father's secret affair. Determined to protect his mother, he forced a meeting with the other woman.

But Dane didn't count on falling in love with her himself. Nor did he count on the front page murder that engulfed them all. Sheila, exotic young international leader of haute couture, is found murdered in her Park Avenue penthouse.

A stunningly illustrated portrait of life and death in a hostile, high-altitude environment where no human can survive for long, Everest invites you to join Breashears, his climbers, and his crew as they make photographic history. Author Broughton Coburn traces each step of the team's progress toward a rendezvous with history - and suddenly you're on the scene of a disaster that riveted the world's attention.

Ellery had a simple case. A few days of discreet snooping, some choice advice, and the inimitable sleuth would blithely restore domestic harmony to the millionaire couple Dirk and Martha Lawrence. Then came the scarlet letters. And finally the cryptic clue, scrawled in a murdered man’s blood. A simple case? Unless Ellery did some super-fast sleuthing, he’d have nothing to show but a very scarlet face. The case will drag him all over New York as he hunts for the truth.

The nice, mild man named Edward Tollman had a problem. His lovely wife was missing, and he wanted her back--fast. So he went to a fellow whose specialty was solving problems like that--a very private detective called Barney Burgess. Burgess' methods were not pleasant, but they got results. Burgess was used to sordid scenes and secrets.

It's 1943, the war is raging, and sleuthing scribe Ellery Queen wants to do his bit. After a tortuous cross-country drive, he takes a job writing scripts for a Hollywood propaganda house - twelve hours a day of hack work that quickly turns his mind to jelly. After a few weeks, he is so worn down that he can type nothing but gibberish, and he decides to drive home. The trouble starts as soon as he reaches the desert.

A card with the letter "J" on it appeared in Robert York's mail, and a day later he was dead. Then another card showed up, and Ellery Queen knew he was up against a brilliant killer who made a game of death by warning his victims. The only clue was the signature "Y" and Ellery had to find him and stop his remorseless vendetta before "Y" won his mad game.

On a seaside vacation, Ellery Queen is ensnared in a trio of strange crimes. Spanish Cape is a dramatic promontory, its rocky cliff stopped with a picturesque hacienda. This isolated spot belongs to millionaire Walter Godfrey and it should be a peaceful family getaway - but one summer evening, Rosa Godfrey argues with her uncle David as he tries to convince her not to run away with one of their guests, the roguish John Marco. Suddenly, a one-eyed gunman appears out of the twilight.

The four of them had only two things in common - their name and a love for the ladies. John Boce was a no-account accountant who lusted after food, drink, cars, and women. John Thompson was a secretive librarian who liked his books and his women well-stacked. John Viviano was a fashion photographer with a great feel for a body - any body! And John Pilgrim was a poetic bum who had the girls hanging on his every stanza. All of them wanted the same woman, but which one wanted her enough to kill?

When Barney Street, the fixer, was in Holland in World War II, his life had been saved by a German soldier. Now Barney is dead and his two million dollar estate is left entirely to the soldier who saved him, Milo Hacha. But that fortune comes with a death sentence, for Barney's widow, Estelle, won't rest until she gets back everything that is rightfully hers.

Police captain Bartholdi sometimes indulged himself in a harmless fantasy. His thoughts, he would imagine, were irresponsible imps that wriggled out of his head and scampered around with an abandon that was often embarrassing. A woman had been kidnapped. The woman was dead. Bartholdi was convinced that a murderer was at that moment having a grim laugh at his expense. He knew who the murderer was. He would have bet his pension and his sacred soul that he knew.

The nine-word clue was one of nine cryptic notes that had been sent to taunt Inspector Queen and his son Ellery nine days after the murder. Nino Importuna had been obsessed with the number. He had lived by it. Now the killer who brought a trio of gory deaths to Nino's ninth-floor penthouse at Number 99 East was camouflaging his identity in a jungle of nines - and daring Ellery to find him. The case was destined to be a dazzling contest of wits - to the ninth degree!

John Lovering Benedict had more than most men - more money, more mansions, more cars, but most of all more women, including three ex-wives with little in common but their extraordinary physiques. For Ellery Queen the question was which one of them had bashed in Benedict's skull with a hunk of iron statuary? The clues were many…but puzzling. All had been planted at the scene of the crime, but by whom, and for what purpose? And who was the last woman in John Benedict's life?

Someone is threatening to kill the King, and Ellery must take on the task of saving his hated life. Virtual prisoners, Ellery and his father are whisked away to an island "somewhere in the Atlantic." In a frightening atmosphere of industrial slavery and brute militarism, Ellery comes to grips with a baffling murderer who calmly announces the exact moment of the assassination. The trouble is, Ellery is with the confessed murderer at the time of the crime - so how could he have possibly done it?

Ellery Queen returned to Wrightsville to solve the mystery of a rich man - believed poor - who died of "old age," a poor man - believed rich - who committed suicide, and a scholarly drunk who disappeared. Shortly it occurred to Queen that the puzzle had a pattern. A twisted mind was committing murder according to an old nursery rhyme! Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief…and to at least one person in town, the chief was Ellery Queen.