I am tired after reading this little piece of work... In a damn good way, though! It's the first time ever that a book has ever fallen from my hands - I literally was on the John while reading the book and then, when the final revelation came, the book just fell from my hands and I was sitting there shocked down to the bones with my eyes closed for a good 10 minutes until I managed to continue reading, albeit really slowly, with a lot of re-reads of those few pages. How, why, what... Those types of questions filled my mind. Queen really got me this time and I'll be proud to make a post of this novel for my 50th post milestone on this blog.
"Ungentle reader, you now have in your possession all the facts pertinent to the only correct solution of the... problem. ...I say with all good will and a fierce humility: Garde à vous, and a pox on headache!" - One of the greatest lines and works of a Challenge to the Reader that I've ever seen, most certainly; you can theorize to your hearts content, you will be trapped, you will be shocked - and THAT is actually a promise straight from an extremely optimistic and almost arrogant author known as one of the greats from the Golden Age, Ellery Queen, on one of his greatest works: The Greek Coffin Mystery.
I made a review on Ellery Queen's the The Dutch Shoe Mystery earlier this year and found it to be entertaining but not too special in the modern days, although the hospital setting for that story is very intriguing. I definitely understand how much the trick done in that story has inspired and been utilized in modern mysteries all the way to Ace Attorney, Detective Conan, Kindaichi and Danganronpa manga and game franchises.
However for this one we'll be talking about an entirely new kind of beast that you don't see every day as there is no mere one trick here that can be used as a trope to shock the readers, no, this is a one single long story that has been professionally crafted.
To put it simply The Greek Coffin Mystery (1932) - TGCM for short - is a traditional golden age detective novel which is even hyped by the author Ellery Queen, the writer name of one of the greatest known orthodox mystery writers, to be one of Ellery's (the character's) greatest cases - TGCM is a case that deserves to be called a well-written story due to the meticulous amounts of planning put into the story and how everything comes together. While it's not a work of perfect synergy, it does a good job to make it all flow together from the very beginning. The story takes place during Ellery's earlier years so the character Ellery, in the "present" of when the book was published, didn't want to publish the story until the fourth book because he himself felt that it was one of his weaker cases, which is quite opposite from reality. Ellery obviously had later thought of how he saw himself constantly messing up during the case instead of the case itself, basically he saw the trees but not the forest. In the novel he's a novice on the crime scene but he has still managed to make a name for himself, still, he's going to have to put in work in order to make the police and his father, the leading inspector Richard Queen, to accept him as part of the investigation squad. The same policemen and attorneys from the earlier stories are all present as well from the muscular inspector Velie and his squad to the district attorney Sampson.
The story begins with a funeral. The words 'tense atmosphere' are brought up multiple times by the story and characters in the beginning - the tensity is in the air up to the point when the coffin is buried as the funeral goes on, but no one is shedding tears. The presentation of the case in this book seems somewhat more gruesome than usual. by the way. The funeral is due to a man named Khalkis, a rich person who was known to handle art. The Case of Khalkis, a name it's given despite Khalkis dying a supposedly natural death, is due to the fact that during his funeral his new testament was stolen. Although there was only a five minute time frame between when the metal box in which the testament is in was last seen and when it was gone from the safe. The case begins with inspector Velie under Queen investigating every nook and cranny - every person who was in the funeral and even the ones who did not attend were listed and everyone's still in Khalkis's house which' area happens to be locked from outsiders; everyone is known and investigated multiple times, however... The metal box is never found. Due to it being locked and with only one key existing there are not many ways to get rid of the testament (such as flushing down the toilet), so the case is pretty well handled in both its limitations and its ridicilousness due to this metal box disappearing impossibly.
Ellery Queen appears on the scene. The police think of him as more of a nuisance during this time in the past when the case took place, and he makes a deduction: if the person who claimed that the testament was still in the safe between those five minutes, and the testament really was stolen then despite the butler of the house not seeing anyone go to the room, then there is only one place where the testament should be, and that place is...! Well, the coffin of Khalkis. As the coffin is lifted from the grave the police medical worker assistant happens to smell something off. Almost as if there was no embalming used on the corpse? On top of the body of Khalkis they witness as rotten corpse of another person who was strangled to death with some kind of rope, and to Ellery's surprise, there's no metal box to be seen, and that's the basis of the story with many twists to it.
When you look at the story structually, you have a book that contains over 400 pages, has a slightly smaller font than the usual novel and quickly in the pages goes expertly over events that would make a novice writer intentionally write chapters about to fill the pages; in the hands of a bad writer this would easily be over 600 pages. You have such an information packed story planned to such lengths and it only focuses on the important aspects of the case so much that it has to be pointed out. There are actually four answers to this case and it's bound to shock any reader at the very end. A complete opposite of Queen's own Kill as Directed work which was a mediocre-at-best short novel that stretched out every little detail.As I was reading the story the third answer has an important detail that can only be figured out by people who are in possession of certain equipment - an equipment that many had in the past but barely anyone has anymore - so I was kind of down in the mood due to that fact being the way to expose the culprit, even though I was shocked by that one already, but the book did not disappoint in the end as it went beyond my expectations of how shocking it can be.
This is truly an impressive piece of work but not in a way that everyone can appreciate it, no sir, as it has nothing to relate to - you can't get emotionally attached to the events or the characters; emotional impact is sadly a likened to always be a sign of "good writing" for most people these days despite that not being true, sure you all know the drill. What makes this story so impressive is the plot weaving and handling of more and more raw information one after another.
So. TGCM is a grand murder symphony, it's a tale about a certain stolen painting and the lives that disappear with it. It's a story that - and I will take liberties of coming up with this kind of solution to how this story originated from what Queen mentions of the story and his fans in the Challenge to the Reader page - Queen created specifically for the fans who claimed that they could 'easily' see right through his plot weavings of the previous stories.
Note: It's preferable to read at least one other Queen work before this one though, for multiple reasons that I will not talk about here, not many of them are exactly spoilers but reading at least The Dutch Shoe Mystery before heading to this one is an advice that I will give to all the Ellery Queen fans in the future.
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