Book group is my reason for returning to the work of Ellery Queen (penname for Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee) so soon after my April read by this duo. My copy of the novel is from the American Mystery Classics series, which includes an introduction by Richard Dannay, Frederic Dannay’s only surviving son. I liked how his introduction includes excerpts from Dannay and Lee’s letters to one another, as it was interesting to see how the authors viewed their own book. Frederic Dannay seems to have been keen to make their series sleuth more fallible and vulnerable in this work, as when writing to Lee in 1948, he said that Cat of Many Tails was ‘a deliberate means of flesh-and-blooding Ellery by deflation of his ego and of his mental prowess.’ Moreover, just over a month later in another letter Dannay wrote, ‘Manny, what I’m trying to do is get away from the old Queen Method which proves that X, and only X, could have been the culprit.’ I was interested to see how these two authors would tackle the serial killer mystery, as it is not one I had encountered in their work before.
For the remainder of this review when I am referring to the Dannay and Lee I will use the phrase, the authors or the word Queen, and when I am talking about their protagonist, Ellery Queen, I will use the word, Ellery.
Synopsis
‘In the dog days of August, it is no surprise to see New Yorkers perspire. But this summer, a killer called the Cat gives the city a new reason to sweat. He selects his victims seemingly at random and strangles them, then escapes without leaving a clue. As the death toll climbs and the press whips the public into a horrified frenzy, Gotham teeters on the edge of anarchy. Ellery Queen, the brilliant amateur sleuth, has gone into retirement when the Cat begins to kill. As his father, a seasoned homicide detective, leads the investigation into the murders, Ellery tries to avoid getting involved. When Queen discovers a clue that could hold the secret to untangling the puzzling crimes, he pounces on the opportunity to crack the case. But unfortunately for him―and for the citizens of 1940s New York City―he’s barely scratched the surface…’
Overall Thoughts
Cat of Many Tails opens bluntly, stating the name of the first victim, and the total number of killings which occur: ‘The strangling of Archibald Dudley Abernethy was the first scene in a nine-act tragedy whose locale was the City of New York.’ I particularly liked the next two words that follow this: ‘Which misbehaved’. It is surprising as you expect any censorious tone to be directed towards the killer, but instead it is pointed at the occupants of New York, who did not cope well with the situation, panic fanned by newspapers and radio stations. This is reinforced by the fact that this alarm ultimately causes hundreds of injuries and deaths. Far more than by the Cat a.k.a. the murderer.
The beginning of the book provides a panoramic view of the situation rather than jumping straight into the action. It is not until chapter 2 that we reach Ellery. He is unable to stop thinking about the serial killer. Yet due to a past recent sleuthing failure Ellery is reluctant to get involved. The authors’ intention to present Ellery as more fallible is evident:
‘In the [name removed to prevent spoilers] Ellery had run into stunning treachery. He had found himself betrayed by his own logic. The old blade had turned suddenly in his hand; he had aimed at the guilty with it and it had run through the innocent. So he had put it away and taken up his typewriter. As Inspector Queen said, ivory tower stuff.’
This passage also shows a difference between the amateur and police detective. If a case does not conclude in an ideal fashion, a police officer doesn’t have the luxury of simply cutting themselves off from detective work (short of quitting their job). You can imagine Inspector Queen having a bad day but then having to get up the next day and get straight back into it. It is also interesting to note that catching the guilty party is depicted as an aggressive act, an attack almost, with the reference to ‘the old blade’, a weapon.
Inspector Queen has been put in charge of a special squad to deal with the serial killings, a role he does not relish. At this point in the story five murders have already occurred and he is able to fill in the reader as he updates his son.
When putting this review together I was curious as to how Cat of Many Tails compared to other serial killer novels, in terms of how the authors approached that style of mystery and which of the tropes associated with the serial killer plotline, they chose to engage with. By the time Cat of Many Tails was published, I feel the subgenre was well-established and the authors would have been aware of the many predecessors. Consequently, their book would be interacting with them. Here are my thoughts, to date, but I would love to hear other ideas that I have missed:
Serial Killer Mystery Checklist
Feature No. 1: Hot weather
Whilst this is not a trope present in every serial killer mystery, it is quite a common one, with another example being found in The Edge of Terror (1932) by Brian Flynn. Why use hot weather in such a mystery? Well, the heat brings out the crowds, which certainly helps a killer to maintain anonymity and to seek out their target. The hot weather also cranks up everyone’s irritability levels, and with increased fatigue poor decision making is possibly also more likely. The majority of the Cat’s murders in Queen’s novel take place over the summer and at the start of the book the heat makes its presence much more felt.
Feature No. 2: Local people, unimpressed with police efforts, set up patrols of their own.
Again, this is a trope also found in Brian Flynn’s mystery and in both novels these patrols, far from helping the local inhabitants or the police, enable rather than discourage the killer. The authors of the Cat of Many Tails, take this to a new height as panic at a big local meeting culminates in a riot, leaving many dead and more injured. The psychological impact of the serial killings on the people of Manhattan, is certainly one of the main priorities of their narrative.
Feature No. 3: The authorities (local government, police) are concerned with the impact the killings have on the community/nation.
This feature follows on from the second. It crops up in serial killer mysteries such as Philip Macdonald’s X v. Rex (1933) where one character says to another:
‘Aren’t there thousands of men and women, some vicious, some foolish, some lustful, some mad, all of whom have been praying night and day for some such collapse of authority as we’re faced with? Don’t you realise man, that it wouldn’t be beyond the truth to say that the whole of England’s social fabric rests upon her trust in policemen? For trust in policemen is trust in the Law, which means the country trust in herself.’
In the Cat of Many Tails, Inspector Queen is worried the city will boil over with violence and rioting if the killer is not caught soon, which for a short time heightens the stakes. We also hear from the mayor a lot who is concerned that his voters will turn against him if the case is not wrapped up soon. The hiring of Ellery as an official consultant to the squad is one of the measures he takes to appease the public and show them that the police are doing everything possible.
Feature No. 4: Relatives of the victims come forward to aid the amateur sleuth.
This is a device that we see in Agatha Christie’s The A. B. C. Murders (1936) and in some books, depending on numbers, it can also be a vehicle for a romance subplot. Given there are few if any witnesses to serial killing murders, perhaps this feature also gives the reader some characters they are able to get more up close to and be interested in or suspicious of. Queen also adopt this trope through two characters. It partially fills in a bit of time, as Ellery lacks tangible leads to follow up for quite a while. It also adds the potential for romance. However, the deployment of these characters is a bit erratic and whilst the woman was an interesting character, the man became increasingly annoying as his characterisation is rather limited to being the shortsightedly jealous lovestruck swain.
Feature No. 5: There is a scapegoat or seemingly obvious suspect, which distracts the attention of the police. The killer themselves often plans for this scenario, framing someone deliberately from the get-go.
Again The A. B. C. Murders makes use of this trope, as does Death Walks in Eastrepps (1931) by Francis Beeding, although they exploit it in different ways. I don’t want to fall into spoiler territory, but I am not sure Queen fully engages with this feature.
Feature No. 6: Narrative point of view.
This is quite a vague category, primarily because there is a lot of variety within the subgenre of serial killer mysteries. For example, some focus on the perspective of a potential victim (see Ethel Lina White’s Some Must Watch (1933)), which can leave the reader on the edge of their seat as they wonder if the character will survive. Others take a more varied approach, sometimes including scenes in which the reader can access the perspective of the killer such as X v. Rex which features diary extracts from the murderer. Cat of Many Tails sticks to a third person narrative which gives more of a bird’s-eye view of the situation, or it concentrates on the efforts of those involved in the sleuthing, predominately Ellery and the police. This approach does not automatically foster tension, particularly if your detective is never in much danger, and I feel in the case of Queen’s book we can be kept at arm’s length from the characters, so reader engagement/investment is limited.
Feature No. 7: The pool of victims doesn’t tend to focus on the conventional murder victim who is an unpleasant, odious family head, who controls the purse strings.
From my reading of serial killer mysteries, whilst some victims may be unlikeable, or have money, more of the victims tend to be everyday folk, who have to work for a living and may need to look after children or sick relatives. This can lead to some poignant victim choices. Interestingly, this is exemplified by the third victim in both Cornell Woolrich’s The Bride Wore Black (1940) and Cat of Many Tails.
Feature No. 8: A lack of obvious motive for the killings + an open set of suspects = A lot of dead ends for the detectives.
Serial killings are a nightmare for detectives, for the above reasons, as well as the fact very often the choice of victims are invariably so varied or seemingly random, that connections between them all are hard to come by. Even when they are painstakingly uncovered, it is not always clear what they signify. Consequently, it is not surprising that the detectives are not successful first time. However, without tangible leads to follow up, this can adversely affect the reading experience, as the narrative can soon become dull and boring. This is a situation that I faced with Midsummer Murder (1937) by Clifford Witting and unfortunately one I encountered with Cat of Many Tails (more on this anon). However, one serial killer mystery, with more than its fair share of dead ends, which avoided this trap is Hans Olav Lahlum’s The Ant Hill Murders (2017), my sole modern mystery example in this post.
Feature No. 9: It is very often a waiting game for the sleuth, who cannot always leap into action, much to the frustration of others.
The A. B. C. Murders provides us with an entertaining example of this trope, as Captain Hastings gets annoyed at Poirot for his lack of active detective work at the start of the novel. However, Poirot is more than able to stand up for himself and point out that it is hard to identify a pattern from one murder. In this situation, detectives in serial killer mysteries, after a few deaths have occurred, try to see if they can get ahead of the murderer, or anticipate their next move. This is a high stakes moment, as failure means further death. Both Christie’s book and Cat of Many of Tails move on to this next stage, and on balance I think Christie deploys it more effectively, creating greater tension. The sequence in Queen’s novel is dragged out too long, thus robbed of its drama.
Feature 10: Newspapers, radio and TV aggravate public fears.
This is a feature which has a big presence and impact in Queen’s novel, ramping up the pressure on the police. The Cat is a faceless killer, but a newspaper cartoonist creates a devastating feline image for them, adding a new tail each time another victim is found. However, unlike in The Case of the Monday Murders (1936) by Christopher Bush, I do not feel that the Cat engages with the Press to manipulate public perception nor taunt or mislead the police.
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One key aspect of the Cat of Many Tails, which I have not explored yet, although I have skirted around the edges of it, is its attempt to straddle the mystery novel (genre fiction) and the literary novel.
On the 29th November 1948, Manfred B. Lee wrote to his writing partner:
‘I am convinced that this will be considered, from every standpoint – both plot and writing – the very finest Queen novel to date, by just a million miles. I think it has a good chance of being considered a sort of classic, at least among the cognoscenti.’
With words such as ‘finest’, ‘classic’, and ‘cognoscenti’ it is arguable that Lee was aiming high with Cats of Many Tails. Yet I contend that the features of a serial killer plot which run on tension and suspense are not overly compatible with a literary novel. The desire to make this book “literary” arguably makes the mechanisms of the former largely impotent.
To begin with let’s talk about pacing. A good serial killer mystery is fast paced, gripping and keeps you turning the pages to find out what happens next. The stakes are high, and the atmosphere can become chilled at a moment’s notice. This is not a strength of literary novels (which does not make them bad, it just means they are doing something different). As a result, the more languid literary style adopted at times, to give a bigger picture view of the serial killer situation, in Cat of Many Tails, really slows the pace down, and this is despite the fact there are 7 deaths in the first 80 pages.
Literary novels, due to their slower speed, can afford more time to spend with characters, letting you get closer to them and invested in their lives. Serial killer mysteries are not devoid of this, but they generate that investment by altering the narrative viewpoint and by raising the stakes e.g. that character you have grown to love might just get bumped off on the next page. However, Cat of Many Tails, falling between these two stools doesn’t really manage it either way. We never get close to the victims (we can’t as they die so rapidly). We don’t really have much in the way of witness or suspect interrogation (so we can’t analyse likeliness of guilt). We have the sleuthing characters, but Ellery has never been a personality I have been fond of. Inspector Queen is probably the most sympathetic character.
As mentioned, people drop like flies in the first 80 pages, but the book is over 300 pages long and there are only two more murder victims left. So unsurprisingly, this becomes a novel where not a lot happens in the middle, and this is exacerbated by the lack of tangible leads. The case does not really have a direction (other than reacting to events) until nearer the 200-page mark. Literary novels are less focused on plot, but it is crucial for serial killer mysteries, so this provides another point of contention.
Overall, I would say Cat of Many Tails is a bloated text, filled out with excessive detail or wider philosophising on themes. The choice of setting for the denouement further emphasises the tendency in this novel to drag things out. Ellery flies to another country to visit someone. However, that person is simply a sounding board for Ellery so he can tell the reader what he thinks about the case, and provide the solution, although much of it is information we are already familiar with. The long conversation is psychoanalytical in tone, which makes the prose quite turgid at points. Eventually the moment for a startling surprise arrives, but the length of the book has drained the narrative of its energy, so by this point I didn’t really care and in fairness I had seen the revelation coming, given how long everything was taking. It gave me too much time to think it over. A shorter book would have made it much punchier and far more powerful, as I think one particular aspect of the ending had some potential emotional clout, which gets overtaken by Ellery’s own feelings and introspection. In conclusion, I think the writing style, almost wanting to be poetic at times, clashes with the priorities of the serial killer plot.
So, I cannot recommend this book as a serial killer mystery, as it does not deliver successfully the need for tension and thrills. However, if you already like the authors’ writing style or their series sleuth, then this will appeal more. Moreover, fans of slow burning books may also fare better. I do appreciate that some readers really like this novel, but unfortunately my reading experience did not match.
Rating: 3.25/5
Which serial killer mysteries would you recommend?
