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
Frederic Morton Frederic Morton Frederic Morton (October 5, 1924 – April 20, 2015) was an Austrian-born American writer. Born Fritz Mandelbaum in Vienna, Morton was the son of a blacksmith who specialized in forging (manufacturing) imperial medals. In the wake of the "Anschluss" of 1938, his father was arrested, but later released. The family fled to Britain in 1939 and migrated to New York City the next year, when the senior Mandelbaum also changed the family name in order to be able to join an anti-Semitic labor union. Morton worked as a baker but began studying literature in 1949. He returned to