The French Powder Mystery

French's department store was famous for the rare merchandise it offered its elite clientele. But no one there could be proud of its latest exclusive window the bloodstained corpse of the owner's wife. Ellery Queen and his father would soon discover a viper's nest of fear and hatred.

ELLERY QUEEN is a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn -- Daniel Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay (1905-1982), and Manford (Emanuel) Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee (1905-1971) -- to write detective fiction. In a successful series of novels that covered forty-two years, Ellery Queen served as both the authors' name and that of the detective-hero. The cousins also cofounded and directed Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, generally considered one of the most influential English crime fiction magazines of the twentieth century. They were given the Grand Master Award for achievements in the field of the mystery story by the Mystery Writers of America in 1961.