On a fishing trip to the town of Wrightsville, Ellery and Inspector Queen are dragged into the case of the murder of a wealthy man who was whacked over the head with an ornamental dog figurine meant as a wedding gift for his daughter and worth nearly half a million dollars. It seems as though two rival candidates for sheriff want the Inspector to solve the town's first murder in decades so that they can grab the credit.
Keywords: 1940s , cheerful , detective , murder-investigation , new-york-city , nypd , post-world-war-ii , writer