The French Powder Mystery, Ellery Queen

Condition:  WELL READ – VINTAGE 

Publisher:  Hamlyn 

Publication date: 1981 

First published 1930 

Format: Paperback 

Pages: 285 

ISBN: 0600200736

About the Book:  

A Hamlyn Whodunnit. . .  

French’s department store on Fifth Avenue is one of the most popular in New York – and its demonstrations of modern furnishings draw fascinated crowds.  But one day the display is even more startling than usual. . . As the fold-away bed is let down from the wall, the body of a woman falls to the floor.  It is Winifred French, wife of the owner, and she has been murdered. 

Ellery Queen’s second case is one of his trickiest ever.  Why does the lipstick in the dead woman’s handbag not match the colour on her lips. . . and what is the white powder concealed in the case?  Who has taken the razor-blade missing from Cyrus French’s private apartment. . . and why has his step-daughter disappeared? 

Ellery Queen gathers the evidence as astutely as always, and the solution is every bit as satisfying as one expects from this master of the genre.