Dan Nai and Li imitated the novel patterns of Vance and Wright in their works. Quinn in the novel is a pretentious "thinking machine", with almost no feelings and no human feelings, only a mouthful of classic quotations. His decorations include walking sticks and pince-nez. Perhaps Dannai and Lee's most creative idea is to put ellery? The name Quinn left a deeper impression on readers, and set the same names for the main characters and co-authors. But they think further. This character is not only detective Quinn, but also the author of a series of detective novels by Quinn.
It took them only three months to finish the novel The Mystery of the Roman Hat, which is a complicated story about a lawyer who was killed in a stage performance. Although the cousins won the essay contest, the magazine mccullough suddenly went bankrupt, and the successor of the magazine also gave the prize to another author. Despite some setbacks, their book was published by Stokes Press. The first book also paved the way for the next eight series of detective novels. Just like their imitation of Vance's novels (Vance's series adopts "six-character murder" with one exception), these books also inherit the title pattern: the mystery of [country name] [noun]. In fact, there was a time when there was an inference that the author was actually Fan? dyne
There is no doubt that these early stories are the best examples of detective works in the golden age. This issue of the puzzle has a "fair competition" style, from the model? A meaningful beginning of dyne's novel. They include "challenging the reader", that is, the author stops the process of the story, which is usually after the last puzzle is revealed. At this point, the reader is told that all clues have been published, and if the reader notices, he or she has found out the truth of the incident with the detective.
This is rare, of course, which is one of the reasons why early novels are so attractive. Only after ellery explains things clearly, usually in the process of answering many pages, readers will be greatly surprised by strange clues, hidden notes and seemingly innocent events. However, regardless of "fair competition" or not, readers usually don't doubt that they have really appeared in the development of the story.
Cousins wrote the second book "The Mystery of Francci Apartment Powder" (also translated as "The Mystery of French White Powder", 1930) and the third book "The Mystery of Dutch Shoes" (193 1). The novel was so successful that they finally started writing full-time. For three months, they wrote, planned, outlined and wrote new detective stories. These books reflect the representative scenes of the 1930s. The store in French white powder (and its showcase), the hospital in Dutch shoe mystery (and its operating room), the church cemetery in Greek coffin mystery (and a coffin with two bodies), the terrible West Virginia cross in Egyptian cross mystery (bloody headless body nailed on the cross), and the competitive performance in American gun mystery (cowboy show). The mountain in the Twin Mystery (literally translated as Siam Twin Mystery) (ellery and his father were trapped on it by raging forest fires), the room in the new york Hotel in the China Orange Mystery (everything was turned upside down, including the clothes on the deceased), and finally the remote seaside peninsula in the Spanish shawl mystery (a corpse without any cover except a hat and shawl).
Other novels worth mentioning in this period include 1935' s excellent short story The Magic Lamp, which was later included in The Magic Lamp. Quinn's new adventure). Although it is short, the story shows the agnostic ellery's thinking about God's belief, which becomes a central role in later works. According to Daniel's son Richard, his father is "interested in religion, but not ungodly." This also applies to the characters created by him and Li. However, religious belief is one of the main social themes in Quinn's later detective novels.
Detective novels in this period often set one or more wrong answers, either put forward by ellery or others, before Quinn finally put the clues together correctly. Nevertheless, the wrong resolution is often convincing, and even some readers can be inferred. These inferences come from the author's ingenious error guidance, which gives readers an instant satisfaction with their reasoning ability. However, inevitably, some less obvious clues are found and added to the puzzle, and the whole solution needs to be checked again. Therefore, usually both Dan Nai and Li are far ahead of the readers.
Another symbol of the Quinn series is "death clues", some of which are rare in real crimes, although the victims can leave something behind. Quinn introduced this concept in 1933' s The Twin Mystery. On the mountain ravaged by fire, the owner of the house was found dead in his study, holding a card torn in half. Death clues play an important role in Quinn's early short stories. For example, in The Woman with a Beard, the victim drew a beard on a woman's portrait before she died. In the glass dome, a more delicate and time-consuming clue was left by a victim at the last moment of his life. These two stories are included in The Magic Lamp. However, after being introduced into these early novels, the dying clues almost completely disappeared in Quinn's later works, and did not reappear until the 1950s and 1960s.
These complex reasoning exercises are comparable to the best works in the golden age of detective novels. But Cousins' best work has not yet arrived. Unfortunately, before that, Dana and Lee went to California.
Mr Quinn went to Hollywood.