Another round of sorting books at my auntie’s antique shoppe brought for a few tomes with Sherlockian ties: books on Johnson and De Quincey, a 1954 anthology with The Hound of the Baskervilles inside, and a few more obscure tomes that I’m holding as hole cards for some later play. One little volume of interest, though, was a 25¢ Pocket Books paperback from 1941.

The book is a twelfth printing of The Chinese Orange Mystery by Ellery Queen. In print for seven years (and first published the same year as the Baker Street Irregulars of New York was founded, a group that one half of “Ellery Queen” would join in 1950), it can be seen as a place-marker for the height of Ellery Queen’s popularity – both of the authors and the detective. Ralph Bellamy was playing the detective on the big screen. Ellery Queen was on the radio, editting collections of mystery stories, having children’s books written by Ellery Queen, Jr. Indeed, it was a time when Ellery Queen seemed to be intent on running the entire murder mystery industry.

And on the cover of this little bit of paperback evidence to all that? Underneath Ellery Queen’s name, we find the words, “Called by many critics ‘the logical successor to Sherlock Holmes.’”

Ooops.

In the 1940s, a lot of detectives were fighting it out to take the crown from Sherlock Holmes. Nero Wolfe, Miss Marple, Philip Marlowe, Hercule Poirot . . . many of them would eventually meet him in one pastiche or another, and one of them would even get reputed to be in the Holmes bloodline. But Ellery Queen! The man was mystery itself! Surely considering him “the logical successor to Sherlock Holmes” was no big stretch.

Except for one little fact . . . in order to be someone’s successor, that person has to go away. In the 1940s, there was probably every expectation in some circles that Sherlock Holmes had run his course. Conan Doyle had died in 1930, and Sherlock Holmes hadn’t had a new story since 1926. It was far to early for Holmes to be moving from “pop culture” to those Elysian fields of “literary classic,” if that was to be his fate. But Sherlock Holmes fandom was jus getting itself organized, Basil Rathbone was bringing new life to the old detective, and Sherlock Holmes just wasn’t going to do away quietly . . . if at all.

Over sixty years later, one can see how the male-dominated Ellery Queen years of the mystery genre have fallen to cultural changes. Women seem to be filling the mystery shelves of any bookstore, both as detectives and authors. The coldly logical fair-play puzzle mystery has given way to the wandering, chatty, more social mystery. Cats, dogs, and tourist settings seem to play a big part in modern mysteries. Once a high lord of the mystery kingdom, Ellery Queen has now faded to has-been status, while Sherlock Holmes has been embraced like a quirky old grandfather by modern mystery buffs. “Sure, he’s not hip, modern, or reflective of our modern values,” they might seem to say, “but he’s family and we love him.”

I’m not sure who wound up being the logical successor to Ellery Queen. Maybe Kinsey Millhone. But her day, too, will probably pass. Sherlock Holmes, however, may have imitators, offspring, heirs, and who-knows-what-else following in his detective wake. But a “successor”? At this point, I think we can say that Holmes won’t be needing a successor, logical or otherwise.

Your humble correspondent,

Brad Keefauver