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The French Powder Mystery

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About this listen

French's department store was famous for the rare merchandise it offered its elite clientele. But no one there could be proud of its latest exclusive window display: the bloodstained corpse of the owner's wife. Ellery Queen and his father, Inspector Richard Queen, soon discover that this palace of commerce is a viper's nest of fear, jealousy, suspicion, and hatred, where love is cheap and the price of honor marked down. But worst of all is the mysterious mocking mastermind who is out to turn the glittering store into a bargain basement of murder.

©2013 Ellery Queen (P)2013 AudioGO Amateur Sleuths Mystery Traditional Detectives Fiction Detective
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A good, old-fashioned detective novel in the Agatha Christie/Sherlock Holmes style. Would definitely recommend.

Very good

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I love the Ellery Queen books and I recommend them to anyone who likes detective fiction.

Ellery

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Very good story. plenty of twists and turns. lots of characters to follow. only real issue was the interminably long denouement in the last chapter. Even Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes would have been ashamed of the grandstanding hour to confirm the killer. Had to listen to same chapter 3x as kept falling asleep. Other than that good story even if the fey Ellory Queen character increasingly grates.

exciting thriller

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I did enjoy this book - the mystery kept me guessing for some time but, particularly by today's standards, I felt it could have moved a little faster. The final summing up took, for example, an hour and a half with a lot of facts we were already aware of reiterated. However, it was still an entertaining listen just probably not for those who like their mysteries fast-moving.

A clever if somewhat long winded story

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I’ve heard so many references to Ellery Queen over the years that I thought I ought to try one and see what I had been missing. The answer is very little.
The characters and the concept have not aged well and the story was quite ridiculous. At many points it felt very like a poor Americanised rip-off of Sherlock Holmes. Although it is of the same era as early Agatha Christie novels, it is distinctly inferior. I won’t be listening to any more.

A disappointment

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