When Sanford Montague is killed while swimming in the pool on the Stamm estate, Philo Vance investigates the murder

The Dragon Murder Case: A Philo Vance Mystery (A Scribner Crime Classic)

Literature & Fiction

VAN DINE, S.S.

Genre Fiction

Macmillan Pub. Co.

Philo Vance, gourmet and amateur detective in 1930s Manhattan, investigates three mysterious poisonings at a fashionable gambling club

The Casino Murder Case: A Philo Vance Mystery (Scribner Crime Classics)

The Benson murder case (Gregg Press mystery fiction series)

History

World

Gregg Press

 CONTENTS:  1. A DOUBLE TRAGEDY  2. THE INVESTIGATION OPENS  3. AT THE GREENE MANSION  4. THE MISSING REVOLVER  5. HOMICIDAL POSSIBILITIES  6. AN ACCUSATION  7. VANCE ARGUES THE CASE  8. THE SECOND TRAGEDY  9. THE THREE BULLETS  10. THE CLOSING OF A DOOR  11. A PAINFUL INTERVIEW  12. A MOTOR RIDE  13. THE THIRD TRAGEDY  14. FOOTPRINTS ON THE CARPET  15. THE MURDERER IN THE HOUSE  16. THE LOST POISONS  17. THE TWO WILLS  18. IN THE LOCKED LIBRARY  19. SHERRY AND PARALYSIS  20. THE FOURTH TRAGEDY  21. A DEPLETED HOUSEHOLD  22. THE SHADOWY FIGURE  23. THE MISSING FACT  24. A MYSTERIOUS TRIP  25. THE CAPTURE  26. THE ASTOUNDING TRUTH    a selection from: A DOUBLE TRAGEDY (Tuesday, November 9; 10 a.m.)  IT has long been a source of wonder to me why the leading criminological writers—men like Edmund Lester Pearson, H. B. Irving, Filson Young, Canon Brookes, William Bolitho, and Harold Eaton—have not devoted more space to the Greene tragedy; for here, surely, is one of the outstanding murder mysteries of modern times—a case practically unique in the annals of latter-day crime. And yet I realize, as I read over my own voluminous notes on the case, and inspect the various documents relating to it, how little of its inner history ever came to light, and how impossible it would be for even the most imaginative chronicler to fill in the hiatuses.  The world, of course, knows the external facts. For over a month the Press of two continents was filled with accounts of this appalling tragedy; and even the bare outline was sufficient to gratify the public's craving for the abnormal and the spectacular. But the inside story of the catastrophe surpassed even the wildest flights of public fancy; and, as I now sit down to divulge those facts for the first time, I am oppressed with a feeling akin to unreality, although I was a witness to most of them and hold in my possession the incontestable records of their actuality.  Of the fiendish ingenuity which lay behind this terrible crime, of the warped psychological motives that inspired it, and of the strange hidden sources of its technique, the world is completely ignorant. Moreover, no explanation has ever been given of the analytic steps that led to its solution. Nor have the events attending the mechanism of that solution— events in themselves highly dramatic and unusual—ever been recounted. The public believes that the termination of the case was a result of the usual police methods of investigation; but this is because the public is unaware of many of the vital factors of the crime itself, and because both the Police Department and the District Attorney's office have, as if by tacit agreement, refused to make known the entire truth—whether for fear of being disbelieved or merely because there are certain things so terrible that no man wishes to talk of them, I do not know.  The record, therefore, which I am about to set down is the first complete and unedited history of the Greene holocaust.1 I feel that now the truth should be known, for it is history, and one should not shrink from historical facts. Also, I believe that the credit for the solution of this case should go where it belongs.  The man who elucidated the mystery and brought to a close that palimpsest of horror was, curiously enough, in no way officially connected with the police; and in all the published accounts of the murder his name was not once mentioned. And yet, had it not been for him and his novel methods of criminal deduction, the heinous plot against the Greene family would have been conclusively successful....

The Greene murder case (Gregg Press mystery fiction series)

CHARACTERS OF THE BOOK PHILO VANCE JOHN F.-X. MARKHAM District Attorney of New York County. ERNEST HEATH Sergeant of the Homicide Bureau. DR. MINDRUM W. C. BLISS Egyptologist; head of the Bliss Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. BENJAMIN H. KYLE Philanthropist and art patron. MERYT-AMEN Wife of Dr. Bliss. ROBERT SALVETER Assistant Curator of the Bliss Museum; nephew of Benjamin H. Kyle. DONALD SCARLETT Technical Expert of the Bliss Expeditions in Egypt. ANÛPU HANI Family retainer of the Blisses. BRUSH The Bliss butler. DINGLE The Bliss cook. HENNESSEY Detective of the Homicide Bureau. SNITKIN Detective of the Homicide Bureau. EMERY Detective of the Homicide Bureau. GUILFOYLE Detective of the Homicide Bureau. CAPTAIN DUBOIS Finger-print expert. DETECTIVE BELLAMY Finger-print expert. DR. EMANUEL DOREMUS Medical Examiner CURRIE Vance’s valet.

The scarab murder case (Gregg Press mystery fiction series)

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

1929. Around 1925 Willard Huntington Wright, critic and writer, underwent a long illness. As part of his convalescence he wrote The Benson Murder Case, in which he created the character of Philo Vance, a master sleuth. So that the book would not be compared to his other works he adopted the pseudonym S.S. Van Dine. By the time The Canary Murder Case, the second in the series was published, Van Dine had become a best seller. He wrote a total of six Philo Vance novels. This Philo Vance story begins: Of all the criminal cases in which Philo Vance participated as an unofficial investigator, the most sinister, the most bizarre, the seemingly most incomprehensible, and certainly the most terrifying, was the one that followed the famous Greene murders. The orgy of horror at the old Green mansion had been brought to its astounding close in December; and after the Christmas holidays Vance had gone to Switzerland for the winter sports. Returning to New York at the end of February he had thrown himself into some literary work he had long had in mind-the uniform translation of the principal fragments of Menander found in the Egyptian papyri during the early years of the present century; and for over a month he had devoted himself sedulously to this thankless task. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

The Bishop murder case (Gregg Press mystery fiction series)

It was exactly three months after the startling termination of the Scarab murder case* that Philo Vance was drawn into the subtlest and the most perplexing of all the criminal problems that came his way during the four years of John F.-X. Markham's incumbency as District Attorney of New York County.\n* "The Scarab Murder Case" (Scribners, 1930).\nIndeed, so mystifying was this case, so apparently inexplicable were its conflicting elements, that the police were for adding it to their list of unsolved murder mysteries. And they would have been justified in their decision; for rarely in the annals of modern crime has there been a case that seemed to reverse so completely the rational laws by which humanity lives and reasons. In the words of the doughty and practical Sergeant Ernest Heath of the Homicide Bureau, the case "didn't make sense." On the surface it smacked of strange and terrifying magic, of witch-doctors and miracle-workers; and every line of investigation ran into a blank wall.\nIn fact, the case had every outward appearance of being what arm-chair criminologists delight in calling the perfect crime. And, to make the plotting of the murderer even more mystifying, a diabolical concatenation of circumstances was superimposed upon the events by some whimsical and perverse god, which tended to strengthen every weak link in the culprit's chain of ratiocination, and to turn the entire bloody affair into a maze of incomprehensibility.\nCuriously enough, however, it was the very excess of ardor on the part of the murderer when attempting to divert suspicion, that created a minute hole in the wall of mystery, through which Vance was able to see a glimmer of light. In the process of following that light to the truth, Vance did what I believe was the shrewdest and profoundest detective work of his career. It was his peculiar knowledge of special and out-of-the-way facts, combined with his almost uncanny perception of human nature, that made it possible for him to seize upon apparently unimportant clues and resolve them into a devastating syllogism.\nVance for years had been a breeder of Scottish terriers. His kennels were in New Jersey, an hour's ride from New York, and he spent much of his time there studying pedigrees, breeding for certain characteristics which he believed essential to the ideal terrier, and watching the results of his theories. Sometimes I think he manifested a greater enthusiasm in his dogs than in any other recreative phase of his life; and the only time I have seen evidences of a thrill in his eyes comparable to that when he had unearthed and acquired a magnificent Cézanne water-color or discovered a rare piece of Chinese ceremonial jade in a mass of opaque modern recuttings, was when one of his dogs went up to Winners.\nI mention this fact--or idiosyncrasy, if you prefer--because it so happened that Vance's ability to look at a certain stray Scottish terrier and recognize its blood-lines and show qualities, was what led him to one phase of the truth in the remarkable case which I am now recording.

The Kennel Murder Case (Gregg Press Mystery Fiction Series)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Bishop Murder Case

When Joseph Cochrane Robin is found murdered in New York’s upper west side accompanied by a note quoting the nursery rhyme “Who Killed Cock Robin”, Philo Vance is called in by District Attorney Markham to help the police track down the murderer. But can Vance solve this complex case before Mother Goose claims any more victims?

The Bishop Murder Case

Literary

Amereon Ltd

In the offices of the Homicide Bureau of the Detective Division of the New York Police Department, on the third floor of the police headquarters building in Centre Street, there is a large steel filing cabinet

The Canary Murder Case

Amereon Limited

The Bishop Murder Case: A Philo Vance Story

The Bishop murder case: A Philo Vance story

Thorndike Press

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Books by VAN DINE, S.S.