Summary
Mandarin Press is a premier publishing house for foreign literature, but to those at the top of this enterprise, there is little more beautiful than a rare stamp. As Donald Kirk, publisher and philatelist, prepares his office for a banquet, an unfamiliar man comes to call. No one recognizes him, but Kirk’s staff is used to strange characters visiting their boss, so Kirk’s secretary asks him to wait in the anteroom.
Within an hour, the mysterious visitor is dead on the floor, head bashed in with a fireplace poker, and everything in the anteroom has been quite literally turned upside down. The rug is backwards; the furniture is backwards; even the dead man’s clothes have been put on front-to-back. As debonair detective Ellery Queen pries into the secrets of Mandarin Press, every clue he finds is topsy-turvy. The great sleuth must tread lightly, for walking backwards is a surefire way to step off a cliff.
Group Reviews/Comments
I really liked the father/son relationship [this was echoed by many readers].
Motive was interesting.
Really convoluted. If he was so smart, he would have done better.
Not interesting.
Language stilted.
Did not like how it was written.
Liked it (only because) I finished it.
No idea what was going on.
Everyone was yelling at each other all the time; too aggressive.
Convoluted. So tedious.
Overly “smart;” unbelievable.
Didn’t click for me. Tried 4 or 5 times but couldn’t get into it.
Maybe if I had read it when I was younger I would have liked it.
Bland.
Some of the phrasing was laughable.
