About this production
The Roman Hat Mystery is the first Ellery Queen novel, published in August 1929 by Frederick A. Stokes with the subtitle A Problem in Deduction. Two cousins from Brooklyn, Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, wrote it the year before for a magazine detective-story contest, under a pen name that is also the name of the detective. They won; the magazine folded before the prize was paid, and Stokes published the book anyway. One of the longest careers in the genre followed, but this is the book where the pieces are set out for the first time: Inspector Richard Queen and his snuff-box, his son Ellery with his pince-nez and his rare editions, Djuna, the boy who keeps house for them on West 87th Street, Detective-Sergeant Velie, and a "Lexicon of Persons" printed at the front so that nobody can cry "Unfair!" at the end. It is also, more than any other book in our catalogue, a novel made of people being questioned in rooms. That is what makes it cast.
Chapter I (17m 39s) is the set-up. A rainy Monday evening, September 24th; Broadway is bleak, and the one jammed sidewalk is outside the Roman Theatre on 47th Street, playing Gunplay, "the first drama of the season to utilize the noises customarily associated with the underworld." Automatics and machine guns go off on stage all evening, and a man dies quietly in seat LL32 without anyone noticing until a clerk named William Pusak stumbles on him. Patrolman Doyle seals the house with the audience still in it, the theatre's publicity man is sent to telephone headquarters for "old man Queen," and the dead man turns out to be Monte Field, a lawyer, in evening clothes and without his top hat. Chapter II (34m 56s) brings in the Queens. Ellery produces a piece of string to take the dead man's head measurement; a detective named Hagstrom finds a half-empty ginger-ale bottle under the seat, in a theatre that sells nothing but orangeade. Chapter III (36m 26s) is the audience being taken apart witness by witness: the doctor who happened to be in the house, the nineteen-year-old orangeade boy, an usherette who left her post, and a small-time gangster called Parson Johnny, caught at the alley door with a cheap fedora that the Inspector inspects anyway. Chapter IV (17m 29s) ends on two torn ticket stubs, LL30 and LL32, whose edges do not match.
That is where a single reading voice runs out of room, and it happens early. The Roman Theatre is a locked box with several hundred people in it, and the book spends its first six chapters letting them out one at a time. There are 50 speaking parts in this production. The Inspector and Ellery are two voices, father and son, and the seven men of the Homicide Squad who fetch and carry for them, Velie, Hesse, Piggott, Flint, Johnson, Hagstrom and Ritter, are seven more, so that a listener knows which detective has just come back from the dead man's flat without a "he said." The theatre gets its own company: Panzer the manager, the elderly doorman afraid for his job, Madge O'Connell the usherette, Jess Lynch with his orangeade tray, and the actors, James Peale, Eve Ellis, Hilda Orange and Stephen Barry, still in costume when the police arrive. Against them stand the people with money: Franklin Ives-Pope, the financier whose daughter's evening bag was found in the dead man's pocket, his wife, his son, and Frances herself. Then Field's own world, none of whom liked him: Benjamin Morgan, the former law partner who is questioned for most of Chapter V (46m 02s); Charles Michaels, the valet with a prison record; Angela Russo, caught in his rooms on the night of the murder and questioned there the next morning, who announces that she was engaged to him; his office manager and the two men from the District Attorney's office who go through his files. Even the anecdote about a French prefect and a discouraged young detective that opens Part Two is played as two voices. Our guide to what an AI narrator tells listeners is about exactly this, and how many character voices an audiobook needs puts a number on it for a book this crowded.
The narration itself has a frame. The novel is told in the third person, but it opens with a foreword signed "J. J. McC.", a friend of the family who says he rescued the manuscript after the Queens retired to Italy, and the production casts the narrator as that man. The foreword (11m 41s) is his, and so is every line that is not dialogue. Every character, both Queens included, is a separate cast voice.
The set pieces are interrogations, and the production paces them as scenes. Chapter V (46m 02s) is the long one in Part One: Morgan, then Frances Ives-Pope, in the manager's office, with the theatre still sealed. Chapter VI (23m 06s) is District Attorney Sampson, ill but irrepressible, giving Field's biography, which is the biography of a blackmailer. Chapter VIII (38m 44s) opens Part Two in Field's apartment on West 75th Street with Mrs. Angela Russo. Chapter X (28m 02s) is the hats: Field bought a dozen of them in the previous year from his outfitters, and the one he wore to the Roman is the one nobody can find. "Hats, hats, hats!" the Inspector groans, and the book keeps its promise: Chapter XIV (33m 54s) is "In Which the Hat Grows," a search of the empty theatre with the help of Mrs. Phillips, a kind old woman Panzer sends over, and Chapter XVII (44m 13s) is "In Which More Hats Grow." Chapter XII (33m 55s) moves the Queens to the Ives-Pope mansion on Riverside Drive and puts the whole household, actors included, in one room. Chapter XIII (43m 38s) is the toxicologist's report, delivered by a man who enjoys his work, rabbit and all. Chapter XVI (27m 53s) takes the Queens back to the Roman for a performance of Gunplay, with police lines on 47th Street to hold the crowd. Chapter XVIII (20m 40s) is called "Stalemate," and means it. Part Four is short and fast: Chapter XX (8m 26s), in which Michaels writes a letter, and Chapter XXI (9m 04s), in which Inspector Queen makes a capture, are the two shortest chapters in the production. Chapter XXII (61m 10s), the longest, is the explanation, and we leave it alone. For how a scene like the theatre lockdown is directed and mixed, see the mystery and detective production guide.
The score and the sound design have a smaller map than a Christie, but a louder one. Most of the book happens in a handful of places: the Roman Theatre, full and then empty and then full again; the Queens' flat on West 87th Street; Field's rooms on West 75th; the Inspector's tiny office at headquarters; the Ives-Pope house on Riverside Drive. What changes is the noise. A play about gangsters, with gunfire written into the script, is running on the stage while the murder is discovered in the orchestra, and later the same house is searched row by row in silence. Audiobook sound effects: levels and mixing is about keeping a mix like that legible. Does your book need a full cast? makes the general case; a novel built almost entirely from dialogue in rooms makes the specific one.
Its nearest companions in the catalogue are English. Strong Poison, published the following year, has another gentleman amateur with a policeman for a friend; The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, three years earlier, is the other Golden Age novel in our catalogue whose trick is in the telling; and The Big Four is the most crowded of our Christie productions. The Roman Hat Mystery is the New York answer to all three: a Broadway house, a Wall Street family, a Homicide Squad, and a District Attorney who is on the detectives' side.
The production runs 10h 57m and contains the foreword and all 22 chapters of the novel, in order, from the rain on 47th Street to the last page of the Inspector's explanation, with opening and end credits. It is free to listen to.
The 1929 text entered the public domain in the United States on 1 January 2025. Frederic Dannay died in 1982 and Manfred B. Lee in 1971, so the book is still under copyright in the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area, where the term runs for seventy years after the death of the last surviving author. This title is available to listen everywhere except those territories.
By the numbers
- Format: Full-cast dramatized audiobook
- Chapters: 25 (the foreword and all 22 chapters of the novel, plus opening and end credits)
- Runtime: 10h 57m
- Cast: Inspector Richard Queen, Ellery Queen, Sergeant Velie, Djuna, and 50 speaking parts in all
- Production: AI character voices, original music, and sound effects
- Price: Free to listen
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Start your first chapter free →FAQ
Is this audiobook AI-narrated?
Yes. Every voice in The Roman Hat Mystery is AI-generated and produced by Midsummerr, with an original score and sound design. AI narration is disclosed as such on retail platforms that require it.
How long is the audiobook?
About 10h 57m across 25 chapters: the foreword and the novel's 22 chapters, plus opening and end credits.
Who narrates it?
The novel is written in the third person and opens with a foreword signed "J. J. McC.", a friend of the Queen family who presents the case as a manuscript he rescued. The production voices the narration as that man. Every character, Inspector Queen and Ellery included, is a separate cast voice.
Is this the first Ellery Queen novel?
Yes. The Roman Hat Mystery was published in August 1929 by Frederick A. Stokes and introduced Inspector Richard Queen, his son Ellery, Djuna and Sergeant Velie. The French Powder Mystery followed in 1930.
Who is Ellery Queen?
Both the author and the detective. Ellery Queen is the pen name under which the cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee wrote, and in the novels it is the name of the Inspector's son, a book collector who writes detective stories and helps his father with cases.
Why can't I listen in the UK or the EU?
The 1929 text is in the US public domain, but copyright in the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area runs for seventy years after the death of the last surviving author, and Frederic Dannay died in 1982. The production is available everywhere else.
Where can I listen?
Listen free at midsummerr.com/listen/roman-hat-mystery-ellery-queen.
