Ellery Queen has now opened his own detective agency, Ellery Queen, Inc., on Times Square, New York, and his very first case develops into a complex and spell-binding tale of crime, intrigue, and extraordinary deduction. In its telling, the author has returned to the style and method of such earlier great successes as THE DUTCH SHOE MYSTERY, THE SIAMESE TWIN MYSTERY, etc. Here again we meet Inspector Queen, Sergeant Velie and other earlier favorites and again Ellery Queen applies his analytical deductive methods to one of the most puzzling murder plots ever uncovered in the annals of crime. Six months after paying Ellery a handsome retainer, a retired munitions magnate, worth many millions, dies on his yacht in the Caribbean. Peculiar circumstances! An important man is quickly buried at sea with no medical certificate and no autopsy! Crew quickly dispersed before they can be questioned! Only Ellery’s diamond sharp wits could cut through the web of tangled events and arrive at the dramatic solution