The Winter Murder Case (1939) is a Philo Vance novella that S. S. Van Dine intended to expand into his twelfth full length book, a project cut short by his death. The Winter Murder Case seems especially similar to the B mystery movies of the...
The zany plot follows nitwit Gracie Allen trying to help master sleuth Philo Vance solve a murder. Allen's uncle fixes her up with Bill at a company picnic. When the two go out to a nightclub that night, Gracie inadvertently links Bill to the...
"Van Dine's last two full-length novels show his storytelling talent operating at full force. The Kidnap Murder Case (1936) adds more physical action than the usual Van Dine cerebral plotting allows, perhaps as an attempt to keep up with...
"There were two reasons why the terrible and, in many ways, incredible Garden murder case—which took place in the early spring following the spectacular Casino murder case —was so designated. In the first place, the scene of this tragedy was...
Philo Vance receives an anonymous letter warning of deadly danger to the wealthy Llewellyn family heir, Lynn. Eccentric widow Priscilla Llewellyn presides over a society family filled with greed, ego and unhappy marriage. Her secretary Doris...
"Of all the cases I have thus far recorded none was as exciting, as weird, as apparently unrelated to all rational thinking, as the dragon murder. Here was a crime that seemed to transcend all the ordinary scientific knowledge of man and to carry...