The Greek Coffin Mystery: A Problem in Deduction

New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. Very Good- in Good+ dj. 1932. First Edition. Hardcover. (with a Triangle Books (reissue) dust jacket) [a good sound copy with a touch of fraying at several corners, modest external soiling, slight fading to spine cloth, one-time owner's name plus date & place of purchase and a brief comment (all in ink) on the front endpaper; the jacket is a bit worn and soiled]. First edition of the fourth Ellery Queen mystery (generally regarded as one of the best of his first-period works; also one of the more uncommon), in which Inspector Richard Queen and his mystery-writing son Ellery are called upon to solve the mystery of the missing will of an elderly Greek man who was an internationally famous art dealer and collector, after his death. Their investigation leads them to believe that the will is hidden in the man's coffin, but when they dig it up and open it they discover a second body within, that of a strangled ex-convict, but no will. The mismatched jacket (which was on the book as we received it) appears to be from a relatively early (late 1930s) Triangle reprint, which accounts for the fact that (a) it fits the first-edition book nicely (1940s Triangle printings tended to be thinner and more cheaply-produced), and (b) that the artwork matches that of the first-edition jacket (later Triangle printings of books often used completely different jacket art). (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.) .