The French Powder Mystery [SEP] series
The French Powder Mystery
The French Powder Mystery is a novel that was written in 1930 by Ellery Queen. It is the second of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
Plot summary.
The story begins with a model in the ground-floor store window of French's Department Store in New York City who is demonstrating the features of a suite of ultra-modern furniture. When she pushes a button to reveal the folding bed, the bludgeoned corpse of the wife of the owner of the store tumbles to the floor.
. Queen's "false solution, followed by the truth" became a hallmark of the canon. Another stylistic element in many early books (notably "The Dutch Shoe Mystery", "The French Powder Mystery" and "Halfway House") is Ellery's method of creating a list of attributes (the murderer is male, the murderer smokes a pipe, etc.). Then, by comparing each suspect to these attributes, he reduces the list of suspects to a single name, often an unlikely one.