The French Powder Mystery

The French Powder Mystery is a detective novel by Ellery Queen, first published in 1930. It is the second novel featuring amateur detective Ellery Queen and his father, Inspector Richard Queen.

The mystery begins at a fashionable New York department store, where a demonstration of a new piece of furniture ends with the discovery of a woman's dead body hidden inside it. The victim is soon identified as the wife of the store's wealthy owner, turning the shocking public discovery into a complicated murder investigation.

As Ellery and Inspector Queen examine the victim's family, acquaintances, and the employees of the store, they uncover secrets, suspicious relationships, and evidence connected to the illegal drug trade. The seemingly straightforward crime becomes increasingly difficult as new clues point in different directions.

Ellery must carefully reconstruct the events surrounding the murder and separate genuine evidence from deliberate deception. Like the other early Ellery Queen novels, The French Powder Mystery is built around logical deduction, an intricate puzzle, and a challenge for the reader to identify the murderer before the final solution is revealed.

"They sat about the old walnut table in the Queen apartment—five oddly assorted individuals. There was District Attorney Henry Sampson, a slender man with bright eyes. Beside Sampson glowered Salvatore Fiorelli, head of the Narcotic Squad, a burly Italian with a long black scar on his right cheek."