7 stories from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine counter unreason with reason as blunt instruments, guns, timing and locked rooms are investigated. Sir Henry Merivale, almost flamdoodled, and Dr. Gideon Fell, chins up, out and quivering, display their ingenuity in four of them; there's Scotland Yard, a French newspaperwoman -- and Edgar Allen Poe as the brains of the other three. Active mental exercise.