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previous indepth review... The American Gun Mystery (1933) next indepth review...

In the arena of a vast New York sports palace, a man lay dead, murdered during the opening scene of a spectacular rodeo.
Can you, as Ellery Queen does, follow these clues to the murderer? - A dead man's belt. What was the meaning of the deep ridges in the leather?
An ivory handled revolver. - How could the "feel" of the gun-butt provide a clue? The broken locks on a green box.
Did the way the locks had been bent point the way to murder?  These are the big points in one of the toughest mysteries ever tackled by Ellery Queen. It was a murder witnessed by 20,000 people, but only Ellery solved it.
Do you think you can, too? 

This mystery is about...

  • A $5000 horse
  • Glass balls shot in mid-air
  • A horrible scar
  • A thirsty horse that would not drink
  • A $3000 check
  • Ivory inlays on an old six-shooter
  • A search of 20,000 suspects
  • A small bank balance
  • A newsreel scoop of a murder
  • A $42,000 gambling debt
  • The 41st cowboy who wasn't a cowboy
"Remember. I predicted that “The American Gun Mystery” would be a best seller? Well, it is."  -- Lionel Houser, The Indianapolis Times

"A humdinger." -- New York Times

"For some reason that is quite beyond me, these Ellery Queen stories have a great vogue among mystery fans. They seem to me pompous, over written and boring, and this one is no exception." -- Bruce Catton, The Indianapolis Times

"Queen begins spinning the web of the mystery slowly, speeds up to a whirl of action, and slows down for a final, somewhat complicated solution of the crime." -- The Western Maryland Voice of Industrial Labor

"... though somewhat over-written, is ingeniously intricate" -- Scribner's Magazine
 
The American Gun Mystery - dust cover Stokes edition, 1933The American Gun Mystery - hardcover Stokes edition, 1933The American Gun Mystery - dust cover Grosset & Dunlap edition, 1933The American Gun Mystery - hard cover Grosset & Dunlap edition, 1933The American Gun Mystery (aka Death at the Rodeo) - dustcover Triangle edition, January 1941
The American Gun Mystery (aka Death at the Rodeo) - cover Triangle edition, January 1941 (several hardcover versions exist)The American Gun Mystery - hardcover Triangle edition, January 1941 (several hardcover versions exist)The American Gun Mystery - hardcover Triangle edition, January 1941 (several hardcover versions exist)
The American Gun Mystery - dustcover World Publishing Company, Tower Books, 1946The American Gun Mystery - hardcover World Publishing Company, Tower Books, September 1946 (1st)
Above: The first books published sometimes had identical front covers. The spine of the books/dust cover only differ in the publisher's logo. Top row left to right: Both dust cover and hard cover for Stokes, Grosset & Dunlap & the dust cover for Triangle Books edition. Bottom row left to right: three hardcover variations for the Triangle Books edition and finally dustcover & hard cover for World Publishing Company, Tower Books edition (Click on the covers to see the differences) *
 
The Evening Star, Washington D.C., "New Books at Random" by Margaret Germond - Tuesday, June 13. 1933

"Ellery Queen again offers a problem in deduction which might, so far as its personnel and its action is concerned, have propounded itself for a solution back in the pioneer days of Texas or Wyoming, but which actually projected itself into the present day in no less wild and woolly west a location than New York City.
Gathered in the great Colosseum of Tony Mars, promoter of various sorts of entertainment, twenty thousand people were yelling themselves hoarse in approval of the usual stunts which constitute a first-class rodeo performance. Included in that immense throng of humanity were Inspector Queen, his son Ellery and the faithful Djuna, to whose urgent pleas that they take him to see the rodeo they had succumbed.
Sitting in the box of the great Tony Mars were other guests besides the Queens and Djuna, among whom were Mara Gay, actress, of Hollywood, and Kit Home, adopted daughter of Buck Horne, one-time fancy rider and shooter, who was being given a chance at a comeback, supposedly by the farseeing and box-office knowing Tony.
The time arrives for Buck Horne's appearance in the arena and he is heralded by his old and tried friend, Wild Bill Grant, yelling to the multitudes that the great Buck Horne, followed by forty riders, will furnish the biggest stunt ot the rodeo. Buck rides in, with forty-one instead of forty horses and men beating the sawdust into a cloud behind them, shooting simultaneously at a signal from their leader. An instant after the shooting Buck falls from his horse, shot through the heart.
Forty-one riders and twenty thousand spectators, and every one of them a suspect! Not an easy task ahead of the Inspector and his inquisitive son, but they tackle it. A week or so later the rodeo resumes its performances, though the mystery of Buck's death is still un solved. On the opening night, with twenty thousand people again on hand and the same group of guests in the box of Tony Mars, in the identical performance in which Buck lost his life, and at the identical spot in the arena, another rider is shot through the heart with the same revolver which killed the first man.
The reader is given an opportunity to identify and to convict, the killer. It is a right big dare even for the most avid of mystery story fans."

 
The American Gun Mystery - cover Mercury Mysteries #164, 1933The American Gun Mystery - cover Mercury Mysteries #164 or #42The American Gun Mystery - Dell cover N°4 , Pocket Book, 1933The American Gun Mystery - cover Avon edition, T-292The American Gun Mystery - cover Avon
The American Gun Mystery - cover Penguin edition 1956The American Gun Mystery - cover Ballantine Books, Oct 12. 1979The American Gun Mystery - coverThe American Gun Mystery - cover Large Print Library

The American Gun Mystery (1933) has a solution that is far fetched even by the standards of the Golden Age. The solution is a cheat, violating Golden Age standards of fair play. The solution is also unusual in that it involves a whole complex, public enterprise behind the crime, one involving both the rodeo and other aspects of show biz. So many Golden Age novels involve one solitary criminal dashing around the bushes of some country house, that it is interesting to see its exact opposite here.  The final chapters, however goofy, have a grandeur of conception. However "unfair", they show the wild imagination at work in the Golden Age detective novel. They also show the surrealism that EQ brought to his work. There is also a good deal of interesting logic and deduction in Queen's finale; the whole thing hangs together as a unified and internally logical plot, however implausible. The book also suffers from the fact that the storytelling leading up to the finale is stiff and uninspired. This is a common problem in EQ; many of the early novels have much better solutions than the narrative between the crime and its solution. The business of the disappearing gun is well done by any standards. (Michael E.Grost)

Ads from four consecutive New York Times Book reviews in 1933 indicate that Ellery Queen's "The American Gun Mystery" was being reprinted every week in its first month of publication.

Above: Ads from four consecutive New York Times Book reviews in 1933 indicate that Ellery Queen's The American Gun Mystery was being reprinted every week in its first month of publication.

In 1933 Dorothy Sayers wrote a review on The American Gun Mystery with her subtitle of “An American Nut Worth Cracking.” She spends her first paragraph quoting seven excesses of Queen’s style. Her first sentence: “Mr. Ellery Queen is determined to be literary or die.” One of her examples: “he was in a chair, his incredible bulk quiescent as poured steel.” “Nevertheless,” she continues, the book has “a rattling good yarn with a well-constructed mystery. (Joe R. Christopher)

It could have been some sort of political commentary, that when it came time to add an "American" book to EQ's series of country titles, he choose The American Gun. Perhaps this reflects America's gun enthusiasm. One rodeos must have visited New York in that era and made a tremendous impression. A similar rodeo is featured in Stuart Palmer's Murder on Wheels (1932), and probably share a common real life ancestor. (Michael E.Grost)


Buck Horne is shot with a .25 automatic in N.Y's new Colosseum on Broadway. Dr. Prouty reappears and from the N.Y.P.D. we get assistance from Thomas Velie, Hesse (blond and stolid), Pigott (thin and shy), Ritter (burly member), Johnson, Inspector Knowles, Hagstrom and Flint. Ellery wearing his pince-nez receives a telegram from Hollywood and sends them a story. With plan and challenge to the reader.

The American Gun Mystery - dust cover Gollancz, LondonThe American Gun Mystery - dust cover Gollancz, LondonThe American Gun Mystery - dust cover Victor Gollancz, 1949The American Gun Mystery - dust cover edition Gollancz, (Complete Crime Novels of Ellery Queen), 1971
The American Gun Mystery - cover eBook edition MysteriousPress.com/Open Road, February 5, 2013The American Gun Mystery - cover audiobook Blackstone Audio, Inc., read by Dan Butler, October 1. 2013The American Gun Mystery - cover Penzler Publishers 'American Mystery Classics', Oct 5. 2021The American Gun Mystery - hardcover Thorndike Large Print edition, February 23. 2022
 
America: A Catholic Review of the Week - July 22. 1933

"The Ellery Queen mystery stories seem to be going around the world. So far we have had Egyptian, Greek, Dutch, French, and Roman. Now it’s American and 100-per-cent American in 'The American Gun Mystery' (Stokes. $2.00). A rodeo in the new Colosseum in New York just off Broadway; death rides with the rodeo before the eyes of 20,000 spectators and movie-camera men who without any warning film a murder. Your mystery- story addict has a taste that is easily jaded, over-exacting, and highly critical all at once. For such the author sends along a pamphlet that explains enough of his technique to lay down a fair challenge to the reader. Unraveling the plot then becomes a game, the reader’s wit alert at every turn, confident that the author will play fair, give adequate clues to solve the plot which, he promises, has but one solution and one criminal. Without the candid challenge to match wits the story might not be fully satisfactory or convincing to the honest fan who wants his mystery straight."

 
Backcover of the Dell pocket book,, Dell Books 4 Published 1943, 2nd edition 1946 with mapback
Above left: French magazine Mon Magazine Policier (Revue Moderne) published in Montreal, Canada, December 1945. It featured La Mort A Cheval.
Above right: Backcover of the Dell pocket book,, Dell Books 4 Published 1943, 2nd edition 1946 with mapback.* 
 


De Dood schoot met Scherp - coverDe Dood schoot met Scherp - Dutch coverLa Mort a Cheval - Published in Canada in Montreal by Editions de Demain, this being volume 5, number 12, December 1945La Mort a Cheval - cover French edition, Éditions La Nouvelle Revue, Collection L'Empreinte, 1937 (5 Francs and 7 Francs)La mort a cheval - cover French edition, Garnier/Les Classiques De L'enigme - 1980La mort a cheval - cover French edition J'ai Lu, 1991Der verschwundene Revolver - cover German Edition Signum Taschenbücher Nr 136
Cinquemila hanno visto - cover Italian edition, Mondadori, 1935Cinquemila hanno visto - cover Italian editionCinquemila hanno visto - cover Italian edition, N°256, 1964Cinquemila hanno visto - cover Italian edition, series 'I classici del giallo' N°366Ventimila hanno visto - cover Italian edition, Sfida al lettore Nr.13 April 1985Ventimila hanno visto - cover Italian edition, series 'I Classici del Giallo', N° 993, june 2004Ventimila hanno visto - cover Italian edition, I Giallo Mondadori Classici, July 2019

The American Gun Mystery Translations:  
Brasilian: O Misterio da Arma Desaparecida  
AKA O Misterio do Revolver Americano
  
Chinese: 美國槍的秘密
  
Czech: Záhada americké pistole  
Danish: Rodeo-mysteriet  
Dutch/Flemish: De dood schoot met scherp  
Estonian: Ameerika püstoli mõistatus  
French: La mort à cheval  
German: Der verschwundene Revolver  
Greek: ΘANATOS ΣTO PONTEO  
Italian: Cinquemila hanno visto  
(aka Ventimila hanno visto)  
Japanese: アメリカ銃の謎 (amerikajyuunonazo) 
(aka アメリカ・ロデオ射殺事件) 
Korean: 미국 총 미스터리  
Russian: ТАЙНА АМЕРИКАНСКОГО ПИСТОЛЕТА  
Spanish: El misterio de la pistola americana  
(aka La Muerte va al Circo)  

La Muerte va al Circo - cover Spanish edition, Libreria Hachette, Buenos Aires, Argentina 1945El misterio de la pistola americana - cover Spanish edition, Coleccion El Buho Grandes Novelas Policiacas, Cliper, 1958El misterio de la pistola americana - cover Spanish edition, Editorial Picazo, Morgue 65 N°5, 1965.El misterio de la pistola americana - cover Spanish edition, Editorial Picazo, Barcelona, 1981O Misterio do Revolver Americano - cover Portuguese edition, Colecção Xis 101, Editora Minerva Lisboa  Minerva, 1960O Misterio da Arma Desaparecida - cover Portuguese edition, Publicações Europa-América, April 1987
ΘANATOS ΣTO PONTEO - cover Greek editionAmeerika püstoli mõistatus - cover Est edition, Eesti Raamat in the series Mirabilia, 1986Ameerika püstoli mõistatus - cover Est paperback edition, Maaleht, in the series Maalehe Krimisari, 10.08.2023Дом на полпути - cover Russian compilation (Nr.6), includes "Halfway House" (Дом на полпути) & "The American Gun Mystery" (Тайна американского пистолета), publisher Centrograph (Центрполиграф), 2005.The American Gun Mystery - cover Japanese edition, Tokyo Shogensha, April 14. 1961The American Gun Mystery - cover Japanese edition, Kadokawa Bunko, 1963
アメリカ・ロデオ射殺事件 (American Rodeo Shooting) - cover Japanese edition, Kadokawa Bunko, 1963The American Gun Mystery - cover Japanese edition, Tokyo Shogensha, 4th Edition 1965The American Gun Mystery - cover Japanese edition, Tokyo Shogensha, 16th edition April 23. 1971The American Gun Mystery (アメリカ銃の謎 - amerikajyuunonazo) - cover Japanese edition, Kadokawa Bunko, 1960 (Jan, 1963 - 16th edition 1978)The American Gun Mystery - cover Japanese edition, Tokyo Shogensha, 1981The American Gun Mystery - cover Japanese edition
The American Gun Mystery (アメリカ銃の謎 - amerikajyuunonazo) - cover Japanese edition, 1992The American Gun Mystery - cover Japanese edition, Jun 25. 2014,  illustration by TakenakaThe American Gun Mystery - cover Japanese edition, Sogensha Tokyo, 2017The American Mystery/The Glass Village - cover Chinese edition, Masses Press, December 2000The American Mystery - cover Taiwanese edition, 1990sThe American Mystery - cover Taiwanese edition
The American Mystery - cover Chinese edition (?)The American Mystery - cover Taiwanese edition, November 20. 2004The American Gun Mystery - cover Chinese edition, New Star Press, August 2010The American Gun Mystery - cover Chinese edition, Chemical Industry Press, January 1. 2016The American Gun Mystery - cover Chinese edition, New Star Press, Shinsei Publishing Co., Ltd. , April 2019미국 총 미스터리(The American Gun Mystery) - cover South-Korean edition,  검은숲, Ellery Queen Collection, May 24. 2012
 


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Other articles on this book

(1)
Reading Ellery Queen Jon Mathewson (Nov 2013)
(2) The Poetry of Ellery Queen Pinakothek (Dec 2, 2008)
(3) Mysteries Ahoy! Aiden Brack (May 2019)
(4) The Heel of Achilles Ho-Ling (May 14. 2013)
(5) My Reader's Block Bev Hankins (November 12. 2021)
 
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