The Benson Murder Case
When a well-known New York bachelor is found shot dead in his own home, District Attorney Markham turns to his cultured friend Philo Vance, an aesthete and amateur criminologist who solves crimes by reading character rather than chasing fingerprints. Van Dine’s 1926 debut introduced Vance to enormous popular success and helped ignite America’s Golden Age of detective fiction. Vance dismisses the obvious suspects and the physical clues that satisfy the police, insisting that only psychology can reveal who truly fits the crime. Elegant, talky, and confidently clever, it set the template for the classic drawing-room whodunit on this side of the Atlantic. Free to download as a PDF and EPUB edition.
About the Author
S. S. Van Dine was the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright (1888-1939), an American art critic and editor who turned to crime fiction while recovering from illness. His Philo Vance novels became runaway bestsellers in the late 1920s and did much to popularize the…
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