Published in 1929, The Roman Hat Mystery is the debut novel featuring Ellery Queen — both the fictional detective and the pseudonym of cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee. A spectator is poisoned at a Broadway theater and his hat vanishes: Ellery Queen applies his formidable logical powers to solve the puzzle in classic fair-play style.
The Ellery Queen series became one of the most celebrated in American mystery fiction, and The Roman Hat Mystery is where it all began. Download this free public-domain EPUB at Better Gutenberg.