The Finishing Stroke the young heir, was born in 1905. This is at odds with accounts in the earliest Queen stories, but Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, who co-wrote the novels under the "Ellery Queen" pen name, were both born in 1905. To quote some negative criticism of the novel: "Rhymed threats of murder, accompanied by symbolic objectives, bewilder the guests and annoy the reader. The pervasive vulgarity renders the trick plot even less believable and justifies the contempt of those who dismiss all crime fiction as puerile." The Finishing Stroke The Finishing Stroke is a mystery novel by Ellery Queen, published
Pen name Asadullah Khan Ghalib", or just "Mirza Ghalib". The French phrase "nom de plume" is occasionally still seen as a synonym for the English term "pen name": this is a "back-translation" and originated in England rather than France. H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, in "The King's English" state that the term "nom de plume" "evolved" in Britain, where people wanting a "literary" phrase failed to understand the term "nom de guerre", which already existed in French. Since "guerre" means "war" in French, "nom de guerre" did not make sense to the British, who did not understand the French metaphor.