The Roman Hat Mystery

De: Ellery Queen

Narrado por: Robert Fass

Duración: 10 h y 57 m

Resumen del Editor

Despite the dismal Broadway season, Gunplay continues to draw crowds. A gangland spectacle, it's packed to the gills with action, explosions, and gunfire. In fact, Gunplay is so loud that no one notices the killing of Monte Field. In a sold-out theater, Field is found dead partway through the second act, surrounded by empty seats. The police hold the crowd and call for the one man who can untangle this daring murder: Inspector Richard Queen. With the help of his son Ellery, a bibliophile and novelist whose imagination can solve any crime, the Inspector attacks this seemingly impenetrable mystery. Anyone in the theater could have killed the unscrupulous lawyer, and several had the motive. Only Ellery Queen, in his debut novel, can decipher the clue of the dead man's missing top hat.

©2013 Ellery Queen (P)2013 AudioGO

Roman theatre and Top hat

my first Queen mystery, style circa 1929, 20 years before I was born. interesting look back to popular fiction of era. Good performance, storyline very dated. I will try a couple more by the author before I can decide yea or nay!

A classic period piece

The first in the Ellery Queen series of novels is a classic of the genre. The whodunit style made quite a contrast from my recent diet of 1930s noir crime fiction. But the matter-of-fact use of contemporary realities - like hats! - in ways that seem crazy today offers similar pleasure to the noir scenes of cops pursuing gangsters on the running boards of flivvers.

Fun & Instructive

This cleverly written and engrossing mystery is also a ticket to travel to another era. The trip to the Roaring Twenties is revealing, endearing and, at times, disturbing. Truly worth the read.

ok but....

Struggled to finish. I usually like these types of stories but this one was hard.

love mystery

I do enjoy a good mystery but this one went on a bit long of tooth. Not that I didn't enjoy listening to the story, but I almost finished before it ended.

a classic, but...

I forgot how melodramatic it is & the racism, sexism, classism, colonialism... oh, my.

A dated story.

I like the old mysteries generally, but the blatantly racist attitude is cringe worthy and it gets so wordy that I want to say, get on with it !

The First Ellery Queen is a Topper

A fun, if convuluted mystery about how an item can disappear from essentially a locked room. It captures a feel for Prohibition, both in style and ugliness like casual rascism. The books tend to be overly long, but I was pleased I got at least the culprit correct.

enjoyable

very easy read. I didn't figure out the murderer until the very end kept me wondering. I would like to read more by this author

Dripping with racism and sexism

Before I bought I read a review that some of the treatment of minority characters was bad, but I didn't think it would be *that* bad. No, it really is *that* bad - the one person of color is literally compared to a monkey! Several times!! The trick of the whodunit is pretty obvious too. The only way I got through the book was by pretending to myself that the 2 main characters, that share the last name "Queen" - really are 2 gay men instead of father and son. That made the story hilarious and tolerable until the curtain was lifted.