Ellery Queen (Lee and Dannay) Photo: Bettmann / Getty Images
Sample of authors
Queen, Ellery
Ellery Queen is a pen name shared by Frederic Dannay, born Daniel Nathan, and Manfred B. (Bennington) Lee, born Manford Lepofsky, both from New York. They were cousins who attended Boy's High School, Brooklyn, together and later worked independently within PR and advertising before they started writing full time in 1931.
Ellery Queen is something of institution in the detective genre; the books...
Literary figures
Arlette van der Valk
Gender: Female
When she was young, she was called Davidson, but the changed her surname after marrying Detective Superintendent Piet Van der Valk in Amsterdam. She is a temperamental, intelligent master-chef and music lover, a minor character in most of the novels about her husband. When he is murdered, Arlette Van der Valk exposes the perpetrator, and then continues as a private detective to solve cases on...