A millionaire ... murdered as she was about to be saved... 'A new Ellery Queen book has always been something to look forward to for many years now' Agatha Christie 'Ellery Queen is the American detective story' New York Times The son of a police detective, Ellery Queen is no stranger to death, and has seen more than his fair share of dead bodies. Yet the thought of seeing a living person sliced open makes him ill. So when a doctor invites him to sit in on an operation, Queen braces himself. The patient is a millionaire in a diabetic coma. To prepare her for surgery, the hospital staff has stabilised her blood sugar level and wheeled her to the operating theatre - but just before the first incision, the doctors realise she is dead, strangled while lying unconscious. Now Ellery Queen moves from observer to detective in his most mysterious case yet.

Ray Bradbury, the undisputed Dean of American storytelling, dips his accomplished pen into the cryptic inkwell of noir and creates a stylish and slightly fantastical tale of mayhem and murder set among the shadows and the murky canals of Venice, California, in the early 1950s. Toiling away amid the looming palm trees and decaying bungalows, a struggling young writer (who bears a resemblance to the author) spins fantastic stories from his fertile imagination upon his clacking typewriter. Trying not to miss his girlfriend (away studying in Mexico), the nameless writer steadily crafts his literary effort--until strange things begin happening around him. Starting with a series of peculiar phone calls, the writer then finds clumps of seaweed on his doorstep. But as the incidents escalate, his friends fall victim to a series of mysterious "accidents"--some of them fatal. Aided by Elmo Crumley, a savvy, street-smart detective, and a reclusive actress of yesteryear with an intense hunger for life, the wordsmith sets out to find the connection between the bizarre events, and in doing so, uncovers the truth about his own creative abilities.