S. S. Van Dine: The Benson Murder Case (USA 2024)

From the Publisher:
New York in the 1920s is the world's most glamorous city, gleaming skyscrapers reaching for the heavens, and the hot notes of the jazz bands rising even higher. Drinking it in like the finest champagne is Philo Vance, an expert in art with the deepest pockets, the brainiest brains, and the most gloriously ludicrous pretentions in the history of crime fiction.

When a scheming young stockbroker is murdered -- in a delicious locked-room scenario based on a real case of the day -- Vance steps in to solve the puzzle not merely because he is bored and seeking new entertainment, but also because honor compels him to point out all the ways in which the police are getting it wrong. The cops of course are profoundly grateful, like all members of the lower orders when their mistakes are pointed out. Peter Wimsey would be appalled, but the reader will be delighted. Philo Vance (here in his first outing) is the sleuth you love to hate.

"...has all the hallmarks of a ripping, puzzle-solving crime." -- Bloomsbury Reader

S. S. Van Dine: The Benson Murder Case. Philo Vance #1. Felony & Mayhem, ISBN: 9781631943263 (November, 2024), 288 p., $16.95, eBook $9.99.

S. S. Van Dine: The Benson Murder Case (USA 1945)

From the Publisher:
THE PHILO VANCE TECHNIQUE
"You observe, I trust," said Vance to Markham, "the great advantage of my methods over yours. When one knows at the outset who committed a crime, one isn't misled by appearances. Without that foreknowledge, one is apt to be deceived by a clever alibi... . I've known who shot Benson since five minutes after I entered his house that first morning."
"But if you knew who was guilty, why, in God's name, didn't you tell me, and save me this week of anxiety?"
"Don't be ingenuous, old man," returned Vance. "If I had made this accusation at the beginning, you'd have had me arrested for criminal libel. You were bound, body and soul, to circumstantial evidence. It was only by letting you see that it led nowhere that I could get you to accept the fact even to-day."
"You've about convinced me," Markham admitted. "There's not very much actual legal evidence, but you've done your share, Vance. I'll carry on."

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S. S. Van Dine: The Benson Murder Case. A Philo Vance Story. Pocket Books #333 (November, 1945), 254 p., ??¢.