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Title: Calamity Town
Series: Ellery Queen
Authors: Ellery Queen
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 198
Words: 80K

Synopsis:

From Wikipedia & Me

Ellery Queen moves into the small town of Wrightsville, somewhere in New England, in order to get some peace and quiet so that he can write a book. As a result of renting a furnished house, he becomes peripherally involved in the story of Jim Haight and Nora Wright. Nora's father is president of the Wrightsville National bank, "oldest family in town", and when the head cashier Jim Haight became engaged to his daughter Nora, he built and furnished a house for them as a wedding present. That was three years ago—the day before the wedding, Jim Haight disappeared, the wedding was called off, and the jinxed house became known as "Calamity House". Ellery rents it, just before the return of Jim Haight, and the wedding is soon on again. Ellery finds some evidence that Jim is planning to poison Nora and, after the wedding, she does display some symptoms of arsenic poisoning. But it is Jim's sister Rosemary who dies after drinking a poisoned cocktail. Jim is tried for the murder and it is only after some startling and tragic events that Ellery reveals the identity of the murderer.

Haight had gotten married after the original wedding didn't happen and his wife wouldn't divorce him. So he married Nora and she found out that he was now a bigamist and it drove her right off the mental tracks. She planned everything and killed Rosemary, who was actually Haight's wife and Jim escaped prison with the help of his real sister and killed himself by driving off a cliff in the escape car. Nora gives birth and dies. Happy times for everyone.

My Thoughts:

Why people think something like this story is fit entertainment, to be written OR read, is beyond me. But I am done with “Ellery Queen”. I didn't like this and I haven't liked any of the previous books, so kaput, I'm done.

★✬☆☆☆ ( )

Calamity Town is my first book by Ellery Queen, picked because it appears on H. R. F. Keating’s List of Best Crime Novels. Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created by American crime fiction writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee. They also use the name Ellery Queen for their main fictional character, a mystery writer. In this outing Queen comes to the small town of Wrightsville for research and ends up helping to solve a case involving murder by poison.

The Wrights are the leading family of Wrightsville and Ellery becomes friendly with the youngest daughter and eventually the whole family. The middle daughter, Nora, has just gotten back together with the love of her life. But bad luck seems to follow Nora as first she has to play host to her husband Jim’s unpleasant sister, Rosemary, and then comes to the realization that her new husband is plotting to murder her. With plenty of twists and turns, the book keeps both Ellery Queen and the reader on their toes although it appears that small town gossip has already decided who the poisoner is. A difficult case to predict, I was absorbed in the story and couldn’t wait to find out what exactly did happen on New Year’s Eve and who the villain was going to be.

I really enjoyed this puzzler and now I have a new author to add to my list of vintage crime authors that I want to read more of. ( )

My mom had the Wrightsville Murders omnibus on our bookshelves when I was growing up. It was a big heavy hardback containing three full-length Ellery Queen novels — Calamity Town, Crazy Like a Fox, and Ten Days' Wonder — that I devoured starting in about sixth grade (40-some years ago). And I knew I had re-read it more than once, but I don't think I fully grasped how often I must have read and re-read it until I started this latest read of the first book in the omnibus, Calamity Town.

On every page — nearly in every paragraph — there was a phrase or sentence or scrap of dialogue that triggered the strongest sense of dejà vu. It wasn't so much that I remember the outlines of the story or whodunit (I actually didn't) but that I remember actual words and phrases! I've never had that happen before and it was a pleasingly disconcerting sensation.

Fortunately the vertigo wore off after Part I (which makes me wonder if I read and re-read just the first section over and over? I wish I could go back in time to find out, but then again that would mean living through junior high and high school again and no thank you) and I could just enjoy the book for what it is, which is a splendidly plotted mystery full of appealing characters put into realistic situations and left to find their way out.

A brief plot overview: It's 1940, and famous writer Ellery Queen has traveled to Wrightsville, a small town in upstate New York, in search of "color" for his next mystery novel. While there, he is befriended by the Wright family, descendants of the town's founder. That leaves him in the perfect place to observe as one misadventure after another befalls the family, culminating in the requisite murder.

Perhaps because they take Ellery out of his usual New York City locale, the Wrightsville novels have always had an extra appeal for me. Whereas the "regular" Queen mysteries set in NYC seem to rely on intricately formed plots with clues and red herrings scattered about, in Wrightsville the characters come to life fully formed and breathing. Incredibly for a novel written in the 1940s, there is virtually no offensive racial stereotyping or cheap laughs gained at the expense of the "hicks" that populate Wrightsville. Ellery does not condescend to his hosts, not even the Town Soak who is prone to declaiming Shakespeare from his drunken perch at the base of the founder's statue in the town square. It feels so much like a real town that I am half convinced I've been there before.

I guess the best thing I can say about this novel is that now I remember why I read and re-read it over and over all those years ago. It's a magnificent piece of scene-setting and characterization, with a mystery that more than lives up to its surrounding structure. I have a feeling I won't wait another 30 years before reading this one again ... ( )

The town of Wrightsville is a main character in this crime novel. When there is a murder with an obvious suspect, the community makes up its mind about one person's guilt, turns its back on old friends and relatives, and violence against outsiders becomes accepted. Ellery Queen is sure someone else is guilty, but finding out who, and then proving it, provide the suspense in this carefully plotted mystery. ( )

An incredible accomplishment and one of my top 5 Ellery Queen titles. The book appears on the surface to be a small town murder case, but beneath the ease of the plot are themes that still speak today. A definite recommendation. ( )