The Chinese Orange Mystery by Ellery Queen (Author)

After seven consecutive best-sellers — Ellery Queen poses an eight problem more bizarre than “The Egyptian Cross Mystery”, more ingenious than “The Siamese Twin Mystery”; more amazing than any crime ever conceived in fiction. We do not hesitate to predict that THE CHINESE ORANGE MYSTERY will be hauled by Mr. Queen’s thousand of ardent fans as the most original of his analytico-deductive novels. What Inspector Richard Queen wanted to know was the identity of the murdered man. How could he be expected to solve a murder mystery without knowing who was murdered? The body of the slain man was found on the 22nd floor of the Hotel Chancellor in a private room; no one even remotely connected with the investigation had ever seen the man before. His name, where he came from, why he was there — remain a baffling mystery to the end. Yet all who found themselves enmeshed in the web of the tragedy — Donald Kirk, millionaire publisher and collector; his invalid father; his younger sister; the young novelist from China; the adventurers from abroad — found their lives warped and changed by the death of this nameless nobody from nowhere! But what perplexed Ellery Queen even more was the incredible appearance of the scene of the crime. Everything had been turned backwards! The victim’s clothing had been turned backwards, the rug upside down, the pictures facing the wall — everything movable in the room had been turned backwards. And what was the explanation of those grotesque ramrods stack up the victim’s back?