Review: The Garden Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

by Mary

The Garden Murder Case runs on "passion, avarice, ambition and horse-racing" and the affair leaves the starting gate as DA John Markham is dining with Philo Vance and narrator Van Dine. A strangely cryptic 'phone message is received, leading the latter two to drop in on Floyd, son of chemistry Professor Ephraim Garden. On this occasion, there are several other visitors, there to follow their custom of a bet or two on horse races, placing them by means of a telephone hookup to a news-service giving odds and last minute scratches, wagers being placed with a bookie via another phone line.

Those having a flutter include the professor's wife Martha, Floyd's friends Cecil Kroon, bright young sportswoman Zalia Graem, and would-be thespian Madge Weatherby, not to mention Mrs Garden's medical attendant, Nurse Bernice Beeton. There's also Floyd's cousin Woode Swift, who has lost a great deal of money betting. Despite attempts to persuade him otherwise, he insists on wagering $10,000 on one horse and goes up to the roof garden to listen to the race on a head phone. The horse loses and the ruined Woode commits suicide with the professor's revolver. When this becomes known, more people than might be expected are seized with the desire to visit the roof garden despite explicit instructions they are to stay downstairs until the police arrive to take charge, and it's not long before accusations are flying about like all get out.

Of course it is not suicide but murder. But who was responsible, what was the motive, and how did they pull it off? Then another death occurs. Vance investigates and ultimately gathers the suspects in the professor's den to point the finger. But there is a startling and somewhat unlikely event before all is revealed.

My verdict: The Garden Murder Case involves an apparently impossible crime. How could any of the visitors have killed Swift without being missed from the gathering downstairs, even in the middle of all the gambling excitement? In this entry in the Vance series the culprit is more easily spotted than in other Van Dine novels, but against that handicap readers should bear in mind although the details are intricate they are clewed in fair fashion.

Review: The Kidnap Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

by Mary

Not to put too fine a point on it, Kaspar Kenting is a rotter. There are hints he has affairs, it is well known he gambles too much, and furthermore he is not very nice to his wife Madelaine. So it is not surprising that when he is kidnapped from his bedroom more than one member of the extended household mutters good riddance.

One of them is Madelaine's neurotic brother Fraim Falloway, who lives upstairs in the Kenting house with their mother, herself quite unwell. Kaspar's broker brother Kenton has charge of the Kenting finances and administers them jointly with Eldridge Fleel, lawyer and family friend. The pair recently refused Kaspar's demand for an outrageous amount of money and this, coupled with certain evidence on the scene, leads to an initial conclusion the kidnapping is bogus and Kaspar is using it as a way to get $50,000 to pay off his debts. However, after a quick stagger about the household Philo Vance begs to differ and as usual he is right. It is not a simple kidnapping case at all.

My verdict: Without, I hope, giving too much away the reader should remember there is no honour among criminals and this novel amply demonstrates it. As usual Van Dine offers a fair bit of misdirection (although one incident is virtually pointed out to be such via Vance's observations on it, a misstep on Van Dine's part IMHO) and DA Markham displays his usual impatient patience with Vance's refusal to even hint at his theories on whodunnit and why. To my surprise there is gun play, demonstrating Vance is not just an airy utterer of arcane knowledge and thus displaying a hitherto overlooked aspect of his character.

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Review: The Winter Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

by Mary

A house party is under way at Rexton Manor in the Berkshires to celebrate the return of Carrington Rexon's son and heir Richard from his studies in Europe. However, Rexon Senior is nervous about his fabled emerald collection, given the mixed bag of café society guests. Philo Vance will easily blend in and so agrees to keep an eye on the situation.

The story gets off to a mysterious start, for the first person Vance and his personal advisor and friend Van Dine see on arrival at the extensive Rexon estate is Ella Gunthar, companion to Richard's invalid sister Joan. Ella is figure-skating alone on a pond in the woods to the music of a portable gramaphone. The large house is full of Bright Young Things, including singer Sally Alexander, treasure hunter Stanley Sydes, and gentleman jockey Chuck Throme. In addition, the Rexon family physician Dr Loomis Quayne pops in regularly to visit Joan.

It is not long before dark events take place. The guard of the wing in which Carrington Rexon's gem collection is kept is found dead at the foot of a cliff in suspicious circumstances. There are plenty of suspects, not just the guests but also Eric Gunthar, Ella's father and overseer of the estate workers, and Old Jed, a hermit who lives in the woods. Then Carrington Rexon is knocked out, the key to the gem room stolen, and his collection rifled of its choicest items. Much more will happen before Vance is able to aid the local constabulary in unmasking the murderer and thief.

My verdict: This is a particularly interesting novel in that while it has plenty of dialogue its style is telegraphic, and there are no footnotes or learned ramblings by Vance. The introduction explains when Van Dine died suddenly the work had reached his usual second stage of writing, meaning it lacked "the final elaboration of character, dialogue, and atmosphere". Van Dine fans therefore have the extra treat of in effect looking over his shoulder as he works.

Shorn of its usual elegant encrustations, then, the plot of The Winter Murder Case is revealed naked to its bare bones but it is still intricate enough to give the reader a chance to deduce the solution before it is revealed. A vital clue in plain sight and misdirection aplenty makes this Philo Vance adventure a valiant last hurrah.

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Review: The Scarab Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

by Mary

Philanthropist Benjamin H. Kyle is found murdered in a private museum run by Egyptologist Dr Mindrum Bliss. Philo Vance becomes involved when Donald Scarlett, a British college friend now working for Dr Bliss, arrives in terrible haste. Scarlett had gone to the museum, discovered Kyle’s body, and then left rapidly because he did not want to get involved. He has come to Vance for help.

DA John Markham and his police department cohorts are soon on the job, assisted by Vance. It transpires Kyle was funding Bliss’s Egyptian expeditions and when found is clutching a financial document drawn up by Bliss, whose scarab cravat pin is on the floor nearby.

It looks bad, especially given the only fingerprints on the statuette that crushed Kyle’s head belong to Bliss, and so does a shoe with a bloody sole. Is it an all too obvious attempt to pin the murder on him? If so, why?

Suspects include half-Egyptian Mrs Meryt-Amen Bliss, who is a lot younger than her husband, and her Egyptian servant Anupu Hani, who insists Dr Bliss’s excavations are sacrilegious tomb plunderings.

Assistant curator Robert Salveter (Kyle's nephew) is not only seems overly interested in Mrs Bliss but will receive a large inheritance under Kyle’s will. The servants seem a shifty pair as well — Dingle, the cook, who hints she may know more than she lets on, and butler Brush, who goes about looking terrified.

My verdict: The Scarab Murder Case is a book or three into the Vance series and his verbal embroidery has toned down considerably although still retaining his distinctive voice, while footnotes proliferate as usual. Markham is now a personal friend of Vance’s, remaining rather a Doubting Thomas when it comes to the psychology of criminals, Vance’s preferred method of solving crimes. Fortunately Vance is extremely knowledgeable in matters ancient Egyptian, which comes in very handy in this instance. Those keen on Egyptology will enjoy certain nuggets of interest strewn here and there, although overall the pace of the novel is slow.

I suspect many readers will geuss whodunnit, but as for proving it, ah, that is a task only Philo Vance could accomplish, and accomplish it he does despite clouds of ever-present cigarette smoke and various devilish machinations. E-Text: The Scarab Murder Case

Review: The Bishop Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

by Mary

The Bishop Murder Case is a mystery that grabs the reader by the lapels and drags them into the story, for it's hard to resist the statement that the matter "seemed too incredible and too wicked for acceptance by the normal mind of man".

Once again, Philo Vance aids DA John Markham and his police colleagues after Joseph Cochrane Robin is found dead, an arrow in his chest, in the private archery range behind retired professor Bertrand Dillard's New York house. Also residing in Dillard's house are his niece Belle and his protégé and adopted son, mathematical genius Sigurd Arnesson. The Drukkers, an over protective mother and her crippled son Adolph, live in the house whose back yard adjoins the Dillard's. More than one person appears to know something useful even if they are not saying anything, and included among them are a neighbouring chess expert, John Pardee, and civil engineer Raymond Sperling, Robin's rival for Belle's hand.

The connection between the nursery rhyme relating how Cock Robin was killed and the murder is noticed even before messages signed by The Bishop, pointing this out, are sent to the press. Soon there is another death whose circumstances again echo a nursery rhyme, and that's only the start.

My verdict: An intriguing premise that will doubtless remind readers of Agatha Christie's A Pocket Full of Rye. Is Philo Vance right when he declares abnormal psychology is involved or is there some other reason for the crimes? The only way to find out is to read this serpentine entry in Van Dine's series, for more I cannot say without revealing too much.

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Review: The Greene Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

by Mary

It has been about l2 years since Tobias Greene died and under his will, if his children do not continue to live in the family mansion for 25 years after his death -- if they marry, their spouses must reside there also -- they will be disinherited. Naturally this has lead to disgruntlement and tension among the siblings, and interviews with their servants confirm there have been years of "daily clashes, complainings, bitter words, sullen silences, jealousies and threats" in the Greene family.

It all comes to boiling point when oldest daughter Julia is killed and her sister Ada wounded in what is initially thought to be a burglary gone wrong. It soon becomes obvious it was no such thing and the siblings do not hesitate to air their grievances against each other to DA John Markham, Philo Vance, and the usual company. In fact, when it comes to suspects, a third daughter, Sibella, declares flat out "If you're looking for possibilities you have them galore. There's no one under this ancestral roof who couldn't qualify."

The household consists of bedridden Mrs Greene, the four children left (Ada, Chester, Sibella, and Rex), German cook Gertrude Mannheim, given to going about muttering to herself, the maids Hemming, convinced God is smiting down the sinful Greenes, and Barton, who rightly reckons "There's something awful funny going on here", plus elderly butler Sproot who reads Martial, although only a snob would find that suspicious. Then there's Doctor Arthur Von Blon, who visits more often that caring for Mrs Greene would seem to necessitate.

Soon there is another death in the mansion....

My verdict: While I would not go so far as to observe that lying beneath the Greene case are what Van Dine in Lovecraftian mode describes as "obscure fetid chambers of the human soul. Black hatreds, unnatural desires, hideous impulses, obscene ambitions", the set-up is bizarre enough to make readers pay close attention to the details and the map of the house, and therefore one or two clues will probably be identifiable fairly easily. One vital to the solution is not presented in quite fair fashion unless you stretch your definition of fair, in which case I will begrudgingly agree that, well, perhaps it was. I wavered between three possible culprits and one of them was the right one -- but in all fairness, it was the last person I began to suspect. A dark novel.

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Review: The Kennel Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

by Mary

Readers must have been surprised to learn Philo Vance bred Scottish terriers, but it was as well for the forces of law and order he did, for it was this interest, coupled with his vast knowledge of Chinese ceramics, that ultimately provided the solution to the Kennel Murder Case.

The novel begins with one of my favourite fictional crime scenes: a suicide in a room locked on the inside. This is merely window dressing, for it is in fact murder. And murder most peculiar, for collector Archer Coe had been shot after his death. In addition, his coat and waistcoat have been removed and his dressing gown substituted but his street shoes have been left on -- not to mention he has been struck on the head and a rib broken. Then there is the question of the badly injured Scottie found downstairs, an unknown dog in a household that does not care for them.

Leaving aside intruders, there aren't many suspects. There's Archer's brother Brisbane and niece and ward Hilda Lake. Milanese museum official Eduardo Grassi, is a house guest, Raymond Wrede, a friend of the family, visits often, and the Coe's Chinese cook Liang Tsung Wei is naturally viewed as suspicious. Financial motives of various sorts provide most of them with an interest in the affair, although Mr Wei is an unknown quantity and seems too cultured for a mere servant. There is talk of revenge for shady deals and tomb robbing and further mayhem ensues but of course Vance ultimately solves the case.

My verdict: The Kennel Murder Case rattles along faster than other entries in the series and there is less eyeball glazing vapouring on esoteric topics than usual. This is intriguing, given the solution hinges on knowledge of canine matters and porcelain, but the leaner prose is the better for it. The reader is cleverly misled through their own expectations although part of the solution begins to manifest to the really attentive towards the end of the book. As for the kennel, we don't see too much of it so the title is somewhat misleading but the little Scottie goes to live with Vance, so it ends happily for her, if not for certain others. In a discussion of methods used to lock rooms from the outside to give the impression of having been bolted by someone inside the room Van Dine naughtily reveals examples from two named novels, so beware of spoilers.

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Review: The Canary Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

by Mary

Broadway beauty Margaret Odell, dubbed The Canary after her rise to fame playing that yellow avian at the Follies, is found murdered in her flat. The only way to enter or exit her building after 6 pm, when the side door is bolted, is through the front entrance, clearly visible from a telephone switchboard manned 24 hours a day. The side door is still bolted when Miss Odell is discovered strangled, her flat ransacked, and valuable jewelry missing. Yet nobody was seen entering or leaving her home during the relevant period.

Miss Odell has kept company with a number of admirers at one time or another and their ranks provide the suspects: socialite Charles Cleaver, wealthy manufacturer Kenneth Spotswoode, fur importer Louis Mannix, and neurologist Dr Lindquist, not to mention professional burglar Tony Skeel. Philo Vance investigates to the babble of his usual erudite running commentary, seeking answers to such questions as how did the murderer get into Miss Odell's flat without being observed? What was the motive? Could more than one person be involved?

My verdict: The novels in this series always require some suspension of belief, what with Vance and his biographer/narrator Van Dine traipsing around crime scenes with the connivance of DA Markham, in this entry to the extent of lying about in Miss Odell's flat smoking themselves silly. Then there's the question of Vance being permitted to participate in police interviews. But if you lock your disbelief in the cupboard the story rattles along quite well, or at least until the closing stages wherein the identity of the murderer is deduced via a poker game in DA Markham's home, a daring stroke of plotting, I admit, but somehow it felt curiously flat. This is probably because I'm not a poker player so the lengthy explanation needed acted as a brake on the action for me. And how did the murderer get into the locked flat unseen? GAD fans will probably know the method from elsewhere but my gripe is Vance coneals the necessary information from Markham *and* the reader until very late in the game. So ultimately a bit of a disappointment for this reviewer at least.

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Review: The Dragon Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

by Mary

The Dragon Murder Case is kicked off when weekend house-guests on the Stamm estate decide to go for a nocturnal swim during torrid weather. All of them have been imbibing too much alcohol and when one of the men dives into Dragon Pool...he vanishes.

The estate itself is an oddity, being situated in a heavily wooded rocky area of Manhattan and yet more or less cut off from the busy city. Mine host is exotic fish fancier and semi alcoholic Rudolph Stamm. Also present is his sister Bernice, fiancee of Montague, the man who went missing. Then there is stockbroker and family financial advisor Alex Greeff, dissipated man about town Kirwin Tatum, widowed Mrs Teeny McAdam, who may have been a past flame of Montague's, Ruby Steele, an artiste much enamoured of dramatic gestures, and the level-headed Mr Leland, who lives in a cottage on the estate and is routinely insulted by certain guests for his Native American blood. Most of them have reason to wish Montague ill and none seem particularly upset about his death. In addition, Rudolph Stamm's ailing mother, given to oracular announcements and mentally unwell, lives under the care a nurse on the top floor of the mansion and tells the investigators rambling stories of the strange sights she has seen, such as the flying dragon who protects the family.

Once Philo Vance and company are called in, events unfold in sometimes startling fashion, most notably when Dragon Pool is drained. The operation discloses a trail made across its silt floor by l4" long feet, accompanied by prints from a three-clawed beast. Could the latter be the dragon of local and family legends?

My verdict: It's always fun trying to work out how a seemingly impossible crime is carried out. My theory on how a body could be removed from the pool without other guests noticing was nothing like the solution advanced by Vance -- and mine was (of course) wrong. Bizarre as it is, Vance's explanation is workable in the scene as given, even though it must be one of the most outrageous methods to remove a corpse without being discovered in the act ever utilised in a mystery. An aside: readers will learn Vance bred exotic fish as well as Scotties. Is there nothing Vance can't undertake?

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Review: The Benson Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine

by Mary

Narrator 'Van' Van Dine originally met Philo Vance at college and is now not only a close friend but also his full-time legal and financial advisor. He is thus on the spot to record cases in which Vance becomes involved.

Vance is rich and cultured, possessing many beautiful and rare examples of art and artefacts from various eras and continents. He easily out-Wimseys Wimsey, what with addressing people as 'Old dear' and constantly talkin' ragin' nonsense, often dropping French or German into conversations with an occasional bit of Latin for variety, not to mention quoting luminaries such as Milton, Longfellow, Cervantes, and Rousseau as well as Spinoza and Descartes. But it's all a front, of course.

John Markham, DA for NY County, arrives at Vance's flat while Van and Vance are discussing business and announces wealthy broker Alvin Benson has been murdered. Alvin's brother Major Anthony Benson has asked Markham to take charge, and Markham had promised Vance he would take him along on his next important investigation. It seems the authorities were casual about protocol as well as crime scenes, because not only do both Vance and Van tag along but they are also present at several interrogations.

At one point Vance produces a list of suspects based upon reasoning from available information and physical evidence. The only snag is they are innocent. It is a demonstration of his conviction that "The truth can be learned only by an analysis of the psychological factors of a crime and an application of them to the individual". Who then is the culprit? The actress Muriel St Clair, in whom the dead man had taken more than a passing interest? Her fiance Captain Philip Leacock, he of the hasty temper and jealous disposition? Major Benson, given the brothers did not get along? What about Mrs Anna Platz, Alvin's housekeeper, who seems to be hiding something, or the precious and impecunious Leander Pfyfe, a close friend of the deceased?

My verdict: Some will find Vance's insistence on keeping the identity of the murderer secret irritating but given he had it sussed out within an hour or two of visiting the crime scene, one can see why. To be fair, he all but takes Markham's hand and leads him to the culprit. There are clues aplenty, and to my delight the author provided those much-loved and now sadly missed tidbits -- a room plan, a character list, and footnotes from Van. Although readers may find Vance's lit'r'y meanderin's a bit tedious, his explanations of his psychological reasonings are interesting and convincing, although I am still not certain if the author was sending it up or using it as a genuine plot device. All in all, however, a good read with plenty of red herrings to confuse the issue.

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