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The writer is the son of Frederic Dannay, co-creator of the Ellery Queen mysteries.

"Legally, his death should have no significance at all, " says Richard Dannay, an intellectual property lawyer in New York City.

Frederic Dannay, 76, former advertising art director who found his real creative calling as co-author of the Ellery Queen mysteries; in White Plains, N.Y.

Dannay and his cousin, former Pressagent Manfred B. Lee, who died in 1971, wrote the first Queen story, The Roman Hat Mystery, for a 1928 magazine contest.

Manfred B. Lee, 66, co-creator of Ellery Queen, the genius of deductive detection; of a heart attack; in Roxbury, Conn. In collaboration with his cousin Frederic Dannay, Lee wrote seven books of short stories and 35 novels about Queen, the solemn first-person protagonist.