Cranston Public Library

The silent rush of footsteps, the muffled shriek, the ever-tightening noose of exotic silk -- the mark of the Cat. The Cat had claimed number nine. The Cat had nine kills, but Ellery Queen found number ten alive and offered the victim temptingly to the killer. The trap was baited, and Ellery and the police poised for the strike that had to come. But the strangler struck elsewhere--and Queen's heart chilled at the thought of what he would find.

"When Ellery Queen, described by the London Times as "the logical successor to Sherlock Holmes," is invited by his friend, a doctor, to witness an operation, he accepts the offer in hopes of furthering his capabilities as an amateur detective, but soon ends up testing those same skills. The patient who is about to undergo the delicate procedure is Abigail Doorn, the richest and most famous woman in America; the doctor who will perform it is her protégé,...

A murder in a crowded Broadway theater presents a full house of suspects—the first in this classic mystery series starring Ellery Queen! Despite the dismal Broadway season, Gunplay continues to draw crowds. A gangland spectacle, it’s packed to the gills with action, explosions, and gunfire. In fact, Gunplay is so loud that no one notices the killing of Monte Field. In a sold-out theater, Field is found dead partway...

While stranded in the desert, Ellery Queen stumbles across a religious cult It's 1943, the war is raging, and sleuthing scribe Ellery Queen wants to do his bit. After a tortuous cross-country drive, he takes a job writing scripts for a Hollywood propaganda housetwelve hours a day of hack work that quickly turns his mind to jelly. After a few weeks, he is so worn down that he can type nothing but gibberish, and he decides to drive home. The trouble...

Could murder really be hereditary? Davy Fox certainly thinks so. When he was only a boy, his father, Bayard Fox, was convicted of murdering Davy's mother in the small town of Wrightsville. Now that Davy has grown up and returned home from the war, he fears that it is only a matter of time until he kills his own wife. But could he really do such a thing? Desperate to find out the truth, Davy's wife, Linda, calls on Ellery Queen to investigate the twelve-year-old...