Vintage 2013 - There Was an Old Woman

There Was an Old Woman by Ellery Queen (1943) - Wicked Women

Read for the Vintage Mystery Challenge 2013
I started this challenge over at my other blogsite, but book reviews will now be posted here. Click the above link to see my vintage mystery list and progress toward completion.

Ellery finds himself embroiled in the turmoil of a crazy family with a wicked and controlling woman for a mother. The mother, Cornelia Potts, has and is sacrificing her three rational grown children’s lives and wellbeing to serve her own power plays and for the whims of her other three mentally insane children.

The story begins as Cornelia urges on her crazy son, Thurlow, in a suit claiming slander against the honorable Potts name. The craziness moves quickly onto Thurlow challenging his younger half-brother to a duel and killing the competent young man at dawn despite the attempts of Ellery to avert the tragedy.

Insanity continues as more family members die.

Finally Ellery begins to put together the motive and plot behind all the murders and death.

I found this story difficult to get into at the beginning due to all the slang from the reporters and police officers covering the slander case. Once I got to the Palace, the house where the old woman raised her children, I was quite enjoying the twists and turns and additions from Mother Goose.

And I’m glad Ellery saved the innocent family members in the end, but the last chapter, could have been left off. I know this is a vintage mystery (1943), and I suspect that there is a reason that they are getting Sheila/Nikki into Ellery’s office, but really a multimillionaire secretary? Even back in the day, why would she do that?

All in all this will be a 3 star book.

To read more reviews of vintage mysteries visit My Reader's Block.