THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING MYSTERY CLASSICS.

According to critic Otto Penzler, "As an anthologist, Ellery Queen is without peer, his taste unequalled. As a bibliographer and a collector of the detective short story, Queen is, again, a historical personage. Indeed, Ellery Queen clearly is, after Poe, the most important American in mystery fiction."^[6] British crime novelist Margery Allingham wrote that Ellery Queen had "done far more for the detective story than any other two men put together".
I saw this quote today on the Internet while I was looking up Ellery Queen, the only writer (actually two cousins) of crime fiction that I read.What I found fascinating about this quote is that the critic gives such high praise to the works of Ellery Queen, yet you can hardly find them today, a mystery in itself. Barnes and Noble had only one novel in stock and none available even on order. When I was fourteen someone gave me a collection of ten hardbound volumes, which I have lost over time. Pity. With so many crime writers today cashing in on ordinary novels (M as in Mediocre) it's a pleasure to have found at least one Ellery Queen mystery.