This early work by S. S. Van Dine was originally published in 1927 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introduction. 'The "Canary" Murder Case' is one of Van Dine's novels of crime and mystery. S. S. Van Dine was born Willard Huntington Wright in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1888. He attended St. Vincent College, Pomona College and Harvard University, but failed to graduate, leaving to cultivate contacts he had made in the literary world....

In this classic 1920s mystery, a debonair aristocrat turned amateur sleuth searches New York City for a killer drawing inspiration from nursery rhymes. Renaissance dandy Philo Vance has an insatiable hunger for complicated puzzles to solve. He frequently serves as an informal advisor to the police on demanding cases. And once again, New York District Attorney John Markham has quite a case for Vance. The body of Joseph Cochrane Robin was found...

Given all the rich people getting bumped off in Philo Vance's Manhattan, it's amazing there are enough left to support the symphony. Latest up: Arthur Coe, found dead in his own locked bedroom. Suicide? The ever-perceptive Philo doesn't buy that theory for a second. The presence in Coe's house of a strange, prize-winning terrier only adds to the mystery, although Philo's fabulously in-depth knowledge of dogs does not in fact solve the crime; his fabulously...

Bet on this Golden Age mystery from the author of The Dragon Murder Case. The "tremendous popularity" of the Philo Vance series stems in part from author S. S. Van Dine's preference for ripping his plots from the headlines of the day (The New York Times). By the early '30s, when Casino came around, those headlines included some creepy chemical discoveries and scandalous doings at secret Manhattan gambling dens, where rich folks knocked back cocktails...

When a playboy is abducted, the highly educated detective "reveals himself as a gun-fighter who can pump hot lead with the best of them" (The New York Times). Recently returned from a refreshing sojourn in Egypt and on his way out the door to enjoy a dog show, Philo Vance is stopped in his tracks by a visit from the New York district attorney. Notorious gambler and ne'er-do-well Kaspar Kenting has been kidnapped from his uptown home, and the culprits...

A murder in the mountains is the latest case for the Manhattan detective famed for his "highbrow manner and parade of encyclopedic learning" (The New York Times). Wealthy and worldly-wise detective Philo Vance has been asked to keep watch at a house party in the snowy Berkshires of western Massachusetts, where he encounters an assortment of guests ranging from a treasure hunter to a race car driver. The owner of the house doesn't quite trust his...