The Chinese Orange Mystery: A Problem in Deduction. This item is unavailable.The Chinese Orange Mystery: A Problem in Deduction

(with a Grosset & Dunlap (reissue) dust jacket) [spine slightly turned, a bit of wear and minor fraying at spine ends, some dust-soiling to top edge of text block, moderate fading to spine, one-time owner's name plus date & place of purchase and a brief comment (all in ink) on the front endpaper; the jacket shows some wear at the edges and extremities, and is internally reinforced along the top and bottom edges]. First edition of the eighth Ellery Queen mystery, a notable "locked-room" tale in which a mysterious and anonymous little man is murdered inside the luxurious hotel suite of a wealthy publisher and collector of precious stones and Chinese postage stamps. (Per Wikipedia, this book "was the only Ellery Queen novel to be included in a list of the top ten 'impossible crime' mysteries of all time (created by noted locked-room mystery writer Edward D. Hoch).") It was also the basis for a movie adaptation, THE MANDARIN MYSTERY (1936), which starred Eddie Quillan as EQ. Again from Wikipedia: "Some elements of the novel were used as the basis for the 1941 film ELLERY QUEEN'S PENTHOUSE MYSTERY, which was then novelized as 'The Penthouse Mystery' by a ghost writer and published as by Ellery Queen." The list of EQ books on the rear jacket flap (which also employs the "masked man" portrait photo of the author) ends with "The Spanish Cape Mystery," thereby helping to date this mismatched dust jacket as circa 1937; notably, it employs the same artwork as the original Stokes jacket. (A facsimile of the actual first edition jacket is available (not from us), however, should you wish to dress it up a bit more properly.).…