A stylish puzzle mystery from the author who "took the intellectual game that was the formal detective novel to greater heights than any American writer" ( The Weekly Standard ). The windows of French's department store are one of New York's great attractions. Year-round, their displays show off the finest in fashion, art, and home décor, and tourists and locals alike make a point of stopping to see what's on offer. One afternoon, as the board debates a merger upstairs, a salesgirl begins a demonstration in one of the windows, showing off French's new Murphy bed. A crowd gathers to watch the bed lower from the wall after a single touch of a button. But as the bed opens, people run screaming. Out tumbles a woman--crumpled, bloody, and dead. The victim was Mrs. French, wife of the company president, and finding her killer will turn this esteemed store upside down. Only one detective has the soft touch necessary--debonair intellectual Ellery Queen. As Queen and his police inspector father dig into French's secrets, they find their killer is more serious than any window shopper.

Swirling, curling brushstrokes. Vivid colors. Thick layers of paint. These are the hallmarks of a painting by Vincent van Gogh, whose work his fellow artist Paul Cézanne once called “that of a madman.” But Van Gogh and the Post-Impressionists for Kids moves beyond the image of the mad pauper to reveal a complex young man who loved nature and reading, spoke four languages, and enjoyed a successful career as a gallery salesman before embarking on studies as a minister and, finally, finding his calling as an artist. Kids journey from the Netherlands to Paris to southern France as they learn about van Gogh’s friendships with four other like-minded painters who admired but were determined to depart from Impressionism: Paul Gauguin, Paul Signac, Émile Bernard, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Aspiring artists and history buffs learn not only how these Post-Impressionists’ daring shapes, colors, and techniques distinguished their work from what was painted before but also how the men helped one another and whether or not they always got along. Twenty-one creative projects bring history and art to life. Readers will create a Starry Night peep box, make a Pointillist sailboat (that can really sail!), craft a Japanese fold-out album, and much more. The text includes a time line, glossary, and reading list for further study.

Called to an urgent meeting at a mysterious shack in the middle of nowhere, attorney Bill Angell finds his brother-in-law, traveling salesman Joe Wilson, stabbed. With Joe's dying breath, he manages to convey that his murderer was a veiled woman. Was it the wild-eyed woman who had sped past Bill on his way up the dark road to the shack? To help him unravel the mystery, Bill calls on his old friend Ellery Queen. But first Queen will have to unravel the victim's double life - starting with the shack where he's been found dead, smack dab between two very different worlds.

ANATOMY OF A KILLER Sam Jordan never lets emotion interfere with his work. He is a precise and ruthless killing machine, dealing out death for hire. But his last job had ended wrong for Jordan, and now Sandy is sending him out again--without a break, yet--to take care of someone named Kemp. Hell, he even has to case the job himself. The whole thing feels jinxed. That's when Jordan meets Betty, who works at the diner. To her he is Mr. Smith, a button salesman. But to Jordan, Betty is a sweet moment in his life, a safe haven. And that's where he makes his first mistake--he allows himself to feel human. A SHROUD FOR JESSO Jack Jesso knows that Gluck wants him out of the syndicate. Still, when Gluck sends him on an errand to find a missing guy named Snell for a shady client of his, Johannes Kator, Jesso doesn't figure it to be anything more than a test. He finds the guy alright--sick and rambling--but Gluck double-crosses him, and tosses Jesso onto a Europe-bound steamer with Kator's crew, their orders to kill him. Jesso quickly realizes that he holds the key to a big money deal in Snell's ramblings, information that Kator desperately needs. All he has to do to stay alive is keep Kator interested. It's a simple enough scheme--until Jesso meets Kator's beautiful sister, Renette.