Book cover featuring a sepia-toned scene with a detective in a fedora taking notes outside of a storefront window that has become a crime scene, where a woman's body lies on a blood-stained chaise lounge.
Two men (authors Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee) peak through a doorway, both wearing suits and spectacles, one donning a mustache and tobacco pipe just like a classic detective.
Book cover featuring a sepia-toned scene with a detective in a fedora taking notes outside of a storefront window that has become a crime scene, where a woman's body lies on a blood-stained chaise lounge.
Two men (authors Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee) peak through a doorway, both wearing suits and spectacles, one donning a mustache and tobacco pipe just like a classic detective.

The French Powder Mystery

Ellery Queen

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A world of glamour. A carefully staged murder. And clues that point everywhere but the truth.

When a wealthy cosmetics magnate is found dead in the display window of a luxury department store in 1930s New York City, the investigation uncovers a web of deception, hidden motives, and carefully planted clues. Together with his father, Inspector Richard Queen of the NYPD, brilliant amateur sleuth Ellery Queen discovers that what begins as a straightforward murder case soon evolves into a meticulously constructed puzzle, with each chapter tightening the net. The narration reveals every clue for readers to follow while concealing Ellery's final deductions until the climactic solution. Near the end of this locked-door mystery, the authors issue their famous "Challenge to the Reader," announcing that all the necessary clues have been presented and inviting readers to solve the crime before Ellery reveals the answer. It's an irresistible opportunity to match wits with one of literature's greatest gentleman detectives.

 

A landmark of Golden Age detective fiction, The French Powder Mystery is a defining example of the classic fair-play whodunit—ingenious, elegant, and relentlessly puzzling. It is part of the legendary Ellery Queen detective series, in which the moniker Ellery Queen was both the shared pseudonym of co-authors Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee and also the name of the sharp-witted sleuth at the center of their intellectually satisfying mysteries. Spanning more than 35 novels, several of which were serialized in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, the series is renowned for its refined prose, clever misdirection, plot twists, and unforgettable solutions.

Celebrated for its intellectual rigor and logical precision, The French Powder Mystery helped establish Ellery Queen as one of the defining voices of Golden Age detective fiction. Perfect for fans of Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, Anthony Berkeley, S. S. Van Dine, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh, this timeless detective novel will delight readers of police procedurals, traditional fair-play whodunits, Golden Age mysteries, and pulp-era vintage crime fiction. Ideal for libraries, book clubs, and collectors alike.

Book cover featuring a sepia-toned scene with a detective in a fedora taking notes outside of a storefront window that has become a crime scene, where a woman's body lies on a blood-stained chaise lounge.
Two men (authors Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee) peak through a doorway, both wearing suits and spectacles, one donning a mustache and tobacco pipe just like a classic detective.

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