The "intensely logical" master sleuth discovers a crowded coffin in
one of his earliest and most puzzling cases (The New York Times).
The scion of a famous New York art-dealing family, Georg Khalkis spent
his final years housebound with blindness until he died of a heart
attack. After his funeral, his will mysteriously vanishes. Following a
thorough search, Inspector Richard Queen's son, Ellery, suggests
checking the coffin, where they discover not one, but two corpses.
When the second body is identified as an ex-convict, it becomes clear
they have a murder case on their hands with links to the art world and a
da Vinci forgery. It's up to young Ellery Queen to solve the case in "a
lively and well-constructed yarn containing unusual setting, ingenuity
of plot, a surprise solution and legitimate use of the
analytico-deductive method" (New York Herald Tribune Book Review).