A few months ago, I reviewed The Tragedy of X, the first novel written by Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee under the Barnaby Ross pen name. I admired the book more than I really liked it. I wanted to read an Ellery Queen and I was in the mood for something dense, but I acknowledge that it has problems. But the Queen cousins were busy beavers during 1932, publishing four books, including X, and they followed up the book with a sequel, The Tragedy of Y.
The book begins with the discovery of York Hatter’s body floating in the Hudson. A suicide note found on the body makes it clear that his death was self-inflicted. And no wonder, so tuts New York high society, when you consider that he was the second husband of the tyrannical Emily Hatter. Emily rules her family with an iron fist, and her husband was verbally beaten down over the years. And then there are their children. Barbara Hatter is“the most nearly human of Emily’s leaping blood,” a brilliant poetess. Conrad Hatter is much worse, a drunken playboy with a series of controversies dogging him, including one death. His long-suffering wife Martha is mother to Jackie and Billy, a pair of screeching demons who torment every adult in range. Youngest daughter Jill sleeps around, a sure sign of madness and insanity. And there’s Emily’s daughter from her first marriage, Louisa. Born blind and mute and having long grown deaf, Louisa is dependent on her mother and personal doctors for help and a board of Braille letters for communication. And yet, she has great strength and gentleness. What she does not have is the love of her siblings, who see her as an object of pity at best and a pest to be squashed at worst. Not helping the tension is that she is the apple of her mother’s eye and Emily will do anything for her daughter. But it seems that that tension is finally boiling over.
More than two months after the discovery of York’s body, someone poisons Louisa’s daily glass of eggnog. She is only spared because Jackie swipes it and gulps it down himself, barely surviving. Emily is outraged, and while she abhors the publicity, the might of the NYPD descend on the Hatter household. However, Inspector Thumm and District Attorney Bruno make no progress, even when they call about the great actor Drury Lane for his insights. Then,“a little less than two months later,” disaster. Emily Hatter is found dead in her bed. It seems that she interrupted another effort to poison Louisa and took a blow to the head from, of all things, a mandolin.
The pacing in this book is much better than in X. In retrospect, it was a mistake to have Drury bragging in that book about how he solved the case by page 100. It made him look smart but also meant all of the key information was frontloaded and made the rest of the book a drag. Here the cousins do a better job at disguising the downtime between incidents. There’s more going on as well as a more active investigation by the police and Lane. He’s still pretty sure of the solution early on, but he doesn’t brag about it and still focuses on gaining proof of the killer’s identity and making sense of the weird clues. These come from Louisa; she interacted with the killer on the night of the murder and reports that they had a smooth face and smelled of vanilla. The hooks are much stronger that its predecessor.
That being said, it does share an issue with X. The characters are memorably grotesque but are pretty shallow otherwise. We spend most of our time with Louisa and her caretakers, and while the character is memorable and the Queen cousins treat her with some respect, there’s also not much depth there. Her siblings aren’t much better. We get about one interview each and then they all but drop out of the book. And that’s not counting the family’s various hangers-on who also don’t do much after their introduction (though in fairness, most aren’t mentioned in the main cast of characters, so the cousins didn’t plan on us spending much time with them). We get more depth on Jackie and Billy’s tutor than we do some of the family members! And even then, it’s solely based around any motive he has for the crimes. The characters do what they need to do and leave. It’s efficient, if not impactful.
The mystery is very good, however. Lane’s final explanation of the killer and their actions is ruthlessly logical, debunking some casual assumptions from much earlier in the book and showing why the killer did what they did. Again, while the last book frontloaded the mystery, here the Queen cousins do a better job at sprinkling clues throughout the book. There’s even a point where I’d argue that any reader can sit down and solve the mystery, but the Queen cousins are rightfully confident that most readers won’t seriously consider the solution. Said solution is one of the best shock moments I’ve seen in a mystery novel, but the build-up to it is, again, very logical. Only the motive is a little obscure, but again, the cousins give you what you need. The reason why the killer used a mandolin? Brilliant, excellent, a real forehead-slapper that makes you go, “Why didn’t I see that!?” I did have some issues, but the overall idea is too solid to dismiss. To be as vague as possible, the solution depends on the killer making some very specific misunderstandings.*
The tone of the book is very good. Instead of the dry investigation of the previous book, we have a book that wallows in the Gothic. The doomed and grotesque family and parts of the solution pull from Gothic novels. However, some of this is not handled well. The “explanation” for the family’s madness isn’t actually stated flat-out due to the mores of the time, so if you’re not familiar with the few hints they do give, you’re going to be lost a key moment. Also, I can’t say that I’m fond of how much the cousins pound in how the state of the Hatter family is 100% on Emily and her diseased blood. And that’s not a metaphor! The misogyny is impossible to ignore.
The end of the book centers Drury Lane. He gets up to some high-handed acts that normally I’d roll my eyes at, but the cousins did a good job of building up to his decision. He doesn’t take it lightly and his summation is as much him wrestling with the magnitude of what he did as it is an explanation of the crime. It’s an interesting take on the “failable detective” idea that the Queen cousins would explore more later in their career. The “tragedy” consumes him as well. He’s still a shallow character overall, but he has some depth here.
Yes, I quite enjoyed The Tragedy of Y. There are some issues, and I don’t know if it would turn a Queen hater into a fan, but it has a better chance of that than most. This is a fascinating Gothic mystery novel that will linger in the memory. For Queen fans this is required reading, for everyone else, it’s Highly Recommended.
Other Reviews: The Case Files of Ho-Ling, In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel, Noah's Archives, The Green Capsule, Reading Ellery Queen (contains spoilers), Dead Yesterday, At the Scene of the Crime.
*To elaborate, (these are huge spoilers!), V qvqa’g ohl n guvegrra-lrne byq znxvat gur zvfgnxrf gung Wnpxvr qvq. Fher, n grrantre zvtug abg tenfc gur ahnapr bs gur bhgyvar naq jbhyq sbyybj vg zber yvgrenyyl guna na nqhyg, ohg V pbhyqa’g oryvrir gung ur jbhyq qb gung jvgu rirelguvat. V’q fhfcrpg gung gur Dhrra pbhfvaf jrera’g snzvyvne jvgu puvyqera. Vs ur’q orra n yvggyr lbhatre V’q unir orra zber pbaivaprq.
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