Author | S. S. Van Dine |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Series | Philo Vance |
Genre | Mystery novel |
Publisher | Scribner's (US) & Cassell (UK) |
Publication date | 1934 |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
Preceded by | The Dragon Murder Case |
Followed by | The Garden Murder Case |
The Casino Murder Case is a 1934 novel written by S. S. Van Dine in the series about fictional detective Philo Vance. In this outing, a murder investigation is connected with a private casino on New York's Upper West Side, and the wealthy and unorthodox family that operates it. It was adapted into a film in 1935.
Philo Vance receives an anonymous letter alerting him to the possibility that violence will soon be done within a well-known family, and the letter also suggests that something of interest will take place that night at the casino. Vance attends, and witnesses the collapse of the son and heir to the family fortune, a heavy gambler, due to his having been poisoned—immediately after he drinks a glass of water from the casino manager's private decanter. At approximately the same time, across town, the son's wife, a former Broadway musical star, dies from poison. The curious factor is that the medical examiner cannot identify the way in which the poison was administered to the wife, except to say that no traces were found in the stomach (and no marks of a hypodermic are found). Vance attends the son's home, and investigates the wife's death—later that evening, the sister of the son and heir is also poisoned. When he recovers, the son suggests that his mother may have been responsible for the poisoning, but Vance also finds a note that suggests that the wife committed suicide. There are other characters connected with the family upon whom suspicion falls, including the sister's two suitors, one of whom is the family physician and the other the chief croupier at the family casino, and the children's uncle, who manages the casino. Vance must determine the method by which the poison was administered, and, at the same time, follows a trail that leads to one of the character's research into the production of deuterium, or "heavy water", which had just been discovered in 1934. Having worked out the murderer's plot and identity, Vance puts himself at the mercy of the murderer, who is holding Vance at gunpoint, in order to hear a confession—then, the murderer is killed in an exciting climax.
Crime novelist and critic Julian Symons wrote: "The decline in the last six Vance books is so steep that the critic who called the ninth of them one more stitch in his literary shroud was not overstating the case." [1] This book is the second of the final six Vance books.
The Casino Murder Case (1935) starred Paul Lukas as Philo Vance, and was a fairly faithful reproduction of the principal details of the novel. Rosalind Russell co-stars.
Ellery Queen is a pseudonym created in 1928 by the American detective fiction writers Frederic Dannay (1905–1982) and Manfred Bennington Lee (1905–1971). It is also the name of their main fictional detective, a mystery writer in New York City who helps his police inspector father solve baffling murder mysteries. Dannay and Lee wrote most of the novels and short story collections in which Ellery Queen appears as a character, and these books were among the most popular American mysteries published between 1929 and 1971. Under the pseudonym Ellery Queen, they also edited more than thirty anthologies of crime fiction and true crime. Dannay founded, and for many years edited, the crime fiction magazine Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, which has been published continuously from 1941 to the present. From 1961 onwards, Dannay and Lee commissioned other authors to write thrillers using the pseudonym Ellery Queen, but not featuring Ellery Queen as a character; some such novels were juvenile and were credited to Ellery Queen Jr. They also wrote four mysteries under the pseudonym Barnaby Ross, which featured the detective Drury Lane. Several movies, radio shows, and television shows were based on their works.
After the Funeral is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in March 1953 under the title of Funerals are Fatal and in UK by the Collins Crime Club on 18 May of the same year under Christie's original title. The US edition retailed at $2.50 and the UK edition at ten shillings and sixpence (10/6).
S. S. Van Dine is the pseudonym used by American art critic Willard Huntington Wright when he wrote detective novels. Wright was active in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-World War I New York, and under the pseudonym he created the fictional detective Philo Vance, a sleuth and aesthete who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in films and on the radio.
Philo Vance is a fictional amateur detective originally featured in 12 crime novels by S. S. Van Dine in the 1920s and 1930s. During that time, Vance was immensely popular in books, films, and radio. He was portrayed as a stylish—even foppish—dandy, a New York bon vivant possessing a highly intellectual bent. "S. S. Van Dine" was the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright, a prominent art critic who initially sought to conceal his authorship of the novels. Van Dine was also a fictional character in the books, a sort of Dr. Watson figure who accompanied Vance and chronicled his exploits.
For the film adaptation see The Canary Murder Case (film)
The Greene Murder Case is a 1928 mystery novel by S. S. Van Dine. It focuses on the murders, one by one, of members of the wealthy and contentious Greene family. This is the third in the series of Philo Vance whodunits, and the first of the Vance books not inspired by a real-life crime.
The Bishop Murder Case (1929) is the fourth in a series of mystery novels by S. S. Van Dine about fictional detective Philo Vance. The detective solves a mystery built around a nursery rhyme. The Bishop Murder Case is believed to be the first nursery-rhyme mystery book.
The Kidnap Murder Case is a 1936 murder mystery novel by S. S. Van Dine, the tenth of twelve books featuring fictional detective Philo Vance.
The Gracie Allen Murder Case (1938) is the eleventh of twelve detective novels by S. S. Van Dine featuring his famous fictional detective of the 1920s and 1930s, Philo Vance. It also features the zany half of the Burns and Allen comedy team. It is in some ways a roman à clef, including not just Burns and Allen but also such characters as Gracie's mother and brother. That gave the book an unusual feel, as did the comic tone of much of Gracie's dialogue. This tone suddenly shifts in a later chapter to one character's philosophically anguished speculations, and then back again to Gracie.
The Winter Murder Case (1939) is a Philo Vance novella that S. S. Van Dine intended to expand into his twelfth full-length book, a project cut short by his death. The Winter Murder Case seems especially similar to the B mystery movies of the 1930s, a cross between Van Dine's usual style and the film style. It was intended as a vehicle for Sonja Henie.
Julian Gustave Symons was a British crime writer and poet. He also wrote social and military history, biography and studies of literature. He was born in Clapham, London, and died in Walmer, Kent.
The Notting Hill Mystery (1862–1863) is an English-language detective novel written under the pseudonym Charles Felix, with illustrations by George du Maurier. The author's identity was never revealed, but several critics have suggested posthumously Charles Warren Adams (1833–1903), a lawyer known to have written other novels under pseudonyms. It is seen as one of the first detective novels in the English language, if not the first.
The Dragon Murder Case is a novel in a series by S. S. Van Dine about fictional detective Philo Vance. It was also adapted to a film version in 1934, starring Warren William as Vance.
Death of an Expert Witness is the seventh novel by P. D. James in which Adam Dalgliesh is featured. It was published in 1977 in the UK by Faber and Faber, and in the US by Charles Scribner's Sons. Set in the Fens, it follows the investigation of the murder of a senior scientist at a police laboratory where his colleagues are too experienced to have left clues.
The Roman Hat Mystery is a novel that was written in 1929 by Ellery Queen. It is the first of the Ellery Queen mysteries.
The Garden Murder Case is the ninth in a series of mystery novels by S. S. Van Dine about fictional detective Philo Vance.
The Casino Murder Case is a 1935 American mystery film starring Paul Lukas and Alison Skipworth. Rosalind Russell is in the supporting cast. It was directed by Edwin L. Marin from a screenplay by Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf, based on the 1934 novel of the same name by S. S. Van Dine. It was the ninth film in the Philo Vance film series.
The Garden Murder Case is a 1936 American mystery drama film, the tenth in the Philo Vance film series, following after 1935's The Casino Murder Case. In this entry to the series, Vance is played by Edmund Lowe, and Virginia Bruce co-stars. The film also features Benita Hume, Douglas Walton, and Nat Pendleton. It was directed by Edwin L. Marin from a screenplay by Bertram Millhauser based on the 1935 book of the same name by S. S. Van Dine.
The Dragon Murder Case is a 1934 mystery film adaptation of the novel of the same name by S. S. Van Dine, starring Warren William as private detective Philo Vance, Margaret Lindsay, Lyle Talbot and Eugene Pallette, and featuring Helen Lowell, Robert McWade, Robert Barrat, Dorothy Tree, George E. Stone and Etienne Girardot.
Crooked House is a 2017 mystery film directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner, based on Agatha Christie’s 1949 novel of the same name. The film stars Max Irons, Terence Stamp, Glenn Close, Gillian Anderson, and Stefanie Martini. Principal photography began in September 2016, and the film aired in the UK on Channel 5 on 17 December 2017.