The Chinese Orange Mystery, 1934

I note that American Mystery Classics are republishing some old Ellery Queen novels, including 1934’s The Chinese Orange Mystery. There’s actually no particular China-connection beyond the murder victim being a collector of Chinese stamps and a missing Chinese orange (as they used to call tangerines). The novel was one of Queen’s “nationality” mysteries along with other titles such as The Siamese Twin Mystery and The Spanish Cape Mystery. Anyway, regular readers of this blog will know I do like to show a lot of covers and the first US edition cover for this book quite interested me as it has some Chinoiserie themes….

cover of the first US edition, 1934