The cover page is adapted from Maxime Dethomas, a painting completed in 1896 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The cover and title pages feature the League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by The League of Moveable Type. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_de_Toulouse-Lautrecwww.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
The Roman Hat Mystery
Chapters (30)
- Acknowledgments 0:00
- Foreword 0:14
- Explanation for the Map of the Roman Theatre 11:52
- Part One 12:54
- I: In Which Are Introduced a Theatre-Audience and a Corpse 13:21
- II: In Which One Queen Works and Another Queen Watches 30:07
- III: In Which a “Parson” Comes to Grief 1:03:20
- IV: In Which Many Are Called and Two Are Chosen 1:37:26
- V: In Which Inspector Queen Conducts Some Legal Conversations 1:53:42
- VI: In Which the District Attorney Turns Biographer 2:39:15
- VII: The Queens Take Stock 3:01:08
- Part Two 3:25:31
- VIII: In Which the Queens Meet Mr. Field’s Very Best Friend 3:26:29
- IX: In Which the Mysterious Mr. Michaels Appears 4:01:48
- X: In Which Mr. Field’s Tophats Begin to Assume Proportions 4:16:26
- XI: In Which the Past Casts a Shadow 4:42:02
- XII: In Which the Queens Invade Society 5:08:26
- XIII: Queen to Queen 5:40:42
- Part Three 6:22:06
- XIV: In Which the Hat Grows 6:22:48
- XV: In Which an Accusation Is Made 6:55:05
- XVI: In Which the Queens Go to the Theatre 7:18:46
- XVII: In Which More Hats Grow 7:45:17
- XVIII: Stalemate 8:26:12
- Interlude 8:43:14
- Part Four 8:44:17
- XIX: In Which Inspector Queen Conducts More Legal Conversations 8:45:16
- XX: In Which Mr. Michaels Writes a Letter 9:06:41
- XXI: In Which Inspector Queen Makes a Capture— 9:14:07
- XXII: —and Explains 9:23:42
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When the play they are attending is interrupted by a policeman yelling at everyone to stay where they are and not get out of their seat, most of the audience in the Roman Theater think nothing of it. After all, the play is about the underworld and the police, and has been full of the sounds of sensationalized criminal society. But this policeman isn’t part of the play; someone in the audience has been murdered.
Inspector Richard Queen soon arrives on the scene, closely followed by his son Ellery, a mystery writer who often assists Richard on his cases. They quickly determine the victim was a well-known crooked lawyer, and discover an odd clue: the man’s top hat is missing. That clue will loom large as the Queen’s investigation leads them deeper into both New York high society and the criminal world in which the dead man moved.
The Roman Hat Mystery is the first of the Ellery Queen detective novels. Ellery Queen is the pseudonym of a pair of cousins who wrote most of the novels, as well as the name of their fictional amateur detective.