3.5 stars
First Sentence: “To me,” said Ellery Queen, “a wheel is not a wheel unless it turns.”
Thoughts: Wild Bill Hickok Grant is bringing his famous rodeo to New York City. “New York City?!”* The highlight of the show will be aging cowboy star Buck Horne on the eve of his spectacular movie comeback. Also attending the show is current cowboy star and Buck’s daughter Kit Horne. The Queens attend opening night because their boy Djuna is a big fan of Westerns and Kit Horne in particular. Djuna is more than a little overwhelmed when he finds out they’re sitting in the celebrity box with Miss Horne herself. Also in the box are Tony Mars, sports promoter and owner of the Colosseum where the performance is being held; Mara Gay, actress in non-Westerns; Julian Hunter, Mara’s husband and ritzy nightclub owner; and Tommy Black, a prizefighter who may or may not be having an affair with Mara.
The rodeo begins with a fusillade of gunshots (blanks shot straight up) and Buck leading 41 cowboys on a chase around the ring of the Colosseum. Except one of the shots wasn’t a blank and it wasn’t shot straight up, as everyone discovers when Buck falls off his horse as he rounds the first bend and gets trampled by the riders behind him. Inspector Queen and Ellery leap out of the box (closely followed by Kit) to check on the body. Yep, he’s dead. Before the staff covers the body, the Queens notice a gunshot wound in Buck’s side.
The Inspector immediately gets to work. He locks the doors of the arena and calls in the boys from Homicide. The coroner shows up and extracts the bullet which came from a .25 caliber gun. The police search the performers and all 20,000 spectators to see who was carrying a .25. Ellery takes the first haul of weapons down to the station for a ballistics check. Several .25s are found, but none of them are the one that killed Buck. Fans of old technology will be fascinated by how they checked the bullets: one by one through a dual microscope. Once again, thank the Powers That Be for computers. They make many things easier.
The next day the Queens go to the movies. Well, a movie studio. Seems there was a crew at the arena last night shooting newsreel footage. The Queens get first look at the footage and notice they can see the exact moment of Buck’s death. However, they weren’t able to see where the shot came from. Judging by the angle of entry, it came from above which would have put the shooter in the vicinity of the Queens’ box. But no one in the box had a .25 and the gun was still missing, even after the tanbark on the ground was thoroughly raked.
Ellery ingratiates himself with Kit Horne and begins spending a lot of time at Hunter’s nightclub. There he uncovers many shady deals, including rigged boxing matches and drug abuse, but nothing about Buck’s murder. Eventually the police clear the rodeo to restart their performances. A cowboy named One-Armed Woody takes Buck’s place at the head of the opening cowboy chase. Just as he rounded the first bend, he fell off his horse and was trampled by the oncoming riders. The coroner checks the body and determines that not only was Woody shot, but he was shot in the same place with the same gun that killed Buck.
The Queens are once again on the hot seat. They have to find that gun. When they find it, they’ll also find out who shot Buck and Woody and hopefully why. It’s a real headscratcher of a case that ends a mite to melodramatically for me. The solution to the final mystery—Kit’s parentage—is obliquely hinted at but never overtly stated. I think I know what it is based on the publication date, but I’m not entirely sure so like Ellery I’ll keep my mouth shut.
The Eclectic Reviewer 