The American Gun Mystery

The Ellery Queen Mysteries

By: Ellery Queen

Narrated by: Dan Butler

Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

When a Western star is gunned down at a rodeo, Ellery Queen saddles up to solve the mystery.

Buck Horne has roped thousands of cattle, slugged his way out of dozens of saloons, and shot plenty of men dead in the street - but always on the back lot. He's a celluloid cowboy, and his career is nearly kaput. The real box-office draw is his daughter, Kit, a brawling beauty who can out shoot any rascal the studio has to offer. Desperate for a comeback, Buck joins Wild Bill Grant's traveling rodeo for a show in New York, hoping to land one last movie contract. But he has scarcely mounted his horse when he falls to the dirt. It wasn't age that made him slip - it was the bullet in his heart. Watching from the stands are Ellery Queen, debonair sleuth, and his police detective father. They are New Yorkers through and through, but to solve the rodeo killing, the Queens must learn to talk cowboy.

©1960 Ellery Queen (P)2013 AudioGO

Love Ellery queen

I just discovered these mysteries. What a treat. I am listening to as many as possible. I generally go for mysteries but got sick of the brutality and overbearing suspense. I like to think and not be emotionally burdened. These work for me. I highly recommend. So different but I also love Tanya French.

Plot was good writing was crisp

Only problems was with this was Challenge to the Listener?No it's reader and the Queens are Irish but so far only here the Inspector has an accent.....

Queen Has His Work Cut Out for Him

This mystery has a wonderful beginning. While watching a Wild West show with 20,000 other people, Ellery Queen watches a man get murdered. There are many questions attached to the crime, not the least of which were: who done it and how did they do it? With twenty thousand witnesses—each the potential villain—Queen has his work cut out for him.

As is usually the case, watching Queen go to work and uncover the various facets of the crime was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the solution was so convoluted and without a solid motive for the crime that I don’t think any jury would have ever convicted. The authors take care of that problem, but honestly, it still detracts from the ultimate satisfaction of the tale.

If you’re an Ellery Queen fan, you will want to read this book. But it’s not a good one to get started on.

Ellery Queen doesn’t stand up to reputation

Author’s style and vocabulary aggravatingly dated. Never use one adjective when you can find 3 more. Ellery explains his thought process multiple times ad nauseum. Might have been a pretty good read if an editor had gotten rid of all the adjectives and adverbs and found a believable hiding place for the murder weapon - and actually given us a motive. I finished only through sheer determination to fully assess the writing. I’ve read a few other Ellery Queen works which were shorter and, though not better, were improved by brevity. Read for the experience but don’t expect much.

Sudden Irish accent for Insp. Queen

Why in the world was it decided to give inspector Queen an Irish accent? None of the previous collections have had it. Nothing has indicated that he is recently come from Ireland. Very distracting.

Love Dan Butler

I have listened to many narrations of Ellery Queen. I have also watched all episodes that I could find.
This narration with Dan Butler is the best I have ever heard.
So to those who have a problem with an Irish accent for Queen Sr, I say Pssst!
Listen to the drama this narrator gives us instead of bitching about the ethnicity of the Inspector. He is great!

OK story

Narrator was not right for this book. He did the Inspector's voice like a Scottish brogue ( at least I think that's what he attempted) . It was very hard to understand. Story was ok...not my favorite.

Sluggish

This seems a book written for audience for whom books were the major source of entertainment. It is slow to commence, and slow to the finish, and slow in the middle. Would make a decent 60-90 minute movie, but as an audiobook it is overlong by half. Not a very satisfying ending.

At least it was cheap

What did you like best about The American Gun Mystery? What did you like least?

Which was my favorite broken nose? That's about what asking for a favorite part of this story is like.

Least favorite has a number of contenders.
- The opening 45 minutes or so concerned the movement of people in the wild west show. None of those movements had any bearing on the case that was to follow and none of it was particularly interesting.
- Inspector Queen had an Irish Brogue accent for the only time I ever heard in the series.
- The solution to the mystery hinges on the hiding place of the gun, but don't waste time trying to work that out. You can't. No one could. The hiding place for the gun is utterly ridiculous if for no other reason than the size of the gun relative to the hiding place. Last time I lost my keys, I didn't look under the last grape in the fruit bowl for the same reason I'd never have looked for a gun where it was hidden. Physics. Things have volume.

What was most disappointing about Ellery Queen’s story?

I've never been a fan of the writing of the Queen stories. The puzzles on the other hand are usually airtight and well crafted. When you finally get the solution you feel like a complete idiot for not seeing them. The technical aspects of the puzzle goes a long way to make up for the cheesy writing.

In this case, the writing wasn't any worse than the puzzle.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

In the rest of the series, the voices and accents were kept fairly consistent. In this one, all those were tossed out. I'm willing to give the narrator the benefit of the doubt and say the director made the changes, but you'd think that if you were doing a later book in a series, you might give a listen to the earlier ones, and at least make the nationalities the same.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

No. Well, maybe. If there was a guy and two robots in the bottom right of the screen mocking it, I'd see that version. The only way to save this one would be to change the puzzle which would require a massive rewrite, which would make it a different movie than the book

Any additional comments?

The only reason I didn't give it one star across the board was that some of the character interactions were good and the narrator didn't read the whole thing in monotone.

listen to previous books before you record

we listen to many books. in a series the initial readers set the tone for the characters. this reader changed the ethnisity of the inspector to a burlesque Irish man. changed the ponunciation of the sgt. velly. jarring and a very poor job. dont use him again.