Our book this week on the Classic Mysteries podcast is quite a case: a young woman is murdered - inside a locked room. Which, in turn, is in a locked building. Where there is a switchboard operator on duty who can swear than nobody could possibly have entered. In fact, when you get right down to it, the murder couldn't have happened. Only it did - and Philo Vance is challenged to solve "The Canary Murder Case
When it comes to detective characters, Philo Vance could be among the most irritating - definitely a know-it-all, fond of obscure references and quotations, supercilious in his treatment of an obviously inferior police department. But he could also shine at detection, had his own freely-admitted flaws and deficiencies. And his author, S. S. Van Dine, the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright, was scrupulously fair about planting his clues for the reader. I've written before about his 20 rules for writing detective stories. If you haven't read Van Dine, you probably should, if only because he has been such an enormous influence on the writers who followed.
By the way, the in-print version of this book, linked above, is a trifle expensive for a book whose author died 70 years ago, to my mind. So I would point out that Project Gutenberg Australia has this and other Van Dine books available for free download, if you have an ebook reader (or don't mind reading it online).
Comments