Cat of Many Tails

by Ellery Queen

Book Overview

The famous sleuth comes out of retirement to help his father hunt down a New York City serial killer: "Marvelous . . . one of his best" (Classic Mysteries). In the dog days of August, it is no... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345282922
• ISBN13: 9780345282927
• Release Date: October 1979
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Cat of Many Tails - Among Ellery Queen's Best Stories

Cat of Many Tails is Ellery Queen at his best. Written in 1949, this suspenseful story, as much a thriller as a mystery, sits almost exactly midway in the Ellery Queen canon. Cat of Many Tales illustrates the willingness of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee to take risks by deviating from their highly successful formula, that of the Ellery Queen deductive puzzler. In this story Dannay and Lee focus more on the victims as actual individuals, and not simply as pieces in a puzzle. Each victim is realistically described; these vignettes add a strong emotional dimension to the story. The middle chapters examine New York City itself, not the geographical entity, but the living, breathing metropolis of seven and one-half million people. Dannay and Lee offer a fascinating sociological study of collective fear as thousands of individuals become terrorized by the actions of a single, unknown assailant. Contrastingly, the later chapters shift focus from mass psychology to the motivation and psychology of a single, disturbed individual. Despite this somewhat atypical structure, Cat Of Many Tails is a solid example of Ellery Queen's remarkable deductive skills. Without giving too much away, Cat of Many Tails is an example of one of Ellery Queen's challenging solutions within a solution, a multi-layered conclusion. Cat of Many Tails ranks among the best Ellery Queen mysteries, worthy of five stars.

Cat of Many Tails - Among Ellery Queen's Best Stories

Cat of Many Tails is Ellery Queen at his best. Written in 1949, this suspenseful story, as much a thriller as a mystery, sits almost exactly midway in the Ellery Queen canon. Cat of Many Tales illustrates the willingness of Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee to take risks by deviating from their highly successful formula, that of the Ellery Queen deductive puzzler. In this story Dannay and Lee focus more on the victims as actual individuals, and not simply as pieces in a puzzle. Each victim is realistically described; these vignettes add a strong emotional dimension to the story. The middle chapters examine New York City itself, not the geographical entity, but the living, breathing metropolis of seven and one-half million people. Dannay and Lee offer a fascinating sociological study of collective fear as thousands of individuals become terrorized by the actions of a single, unknown assailant. Contrastingly, the later chapters shift focus from mass psychology to the motivation and psychology of a single, disturbed individual. Despite this somewhat atypical structure, Cat Of Many Tails is a solid example of Ellery Queen's remarkable deductive skills. Without giving too much away, Cat of Many Tails is an example of one of Ellery Queen's challenging solutions within a solution, a multi-layered conclusion. Cat of Many Tails ranks among the best Ellery Queen mysteries, worthy of five stars.

Well constructed whydunit, but....

Maybe I was influenced by the mildly repugnant paperback cover of the 1965 edition I first read, but I still have a memory that this mystery has an unpleasant air about it. It's biggest puzzle is what connects the victims that are being strangled by a serial killer. I wonder why Anthony Boucher picked this as one of the 5 books in the "World's Great Novels of Detection." Obviously he felt compelled to include a Queen title, and maybe others were unavailble to the publisher, or more often printed. I read it on his "advice," and while not bad, I guess i was disappointed when it didn't match his other choices, which remain to this day - 40 years later - books I read over and over.

first class whodunit

This book belongs certainly to the best books by Queen.Once again the reader is stunned by the solution which is as usual strictly logical enriched by psychoanalysis.An extraordinary mix of thriller (the description of New Yorkunder fear) and whodunit.