The Benson Murder Case
The Benson Murder Case
By: S. S. Van Dine
This novel introduced the character of Philo Vance, a wealthy art collector whom the narrator describes as a dilettante. Vance is a longtime friend of New York District Attorney John F.-X. Markham, who invites him to come along on an investigation of the murder of Alvin Benson, who was shot in the forehead at close range in his own townhouse. To Vance the likely murderer is clear from the start, but Markham insists on using basic police procedure and assumes first one suspect and then another must be the killer. Vance proves him wrong in each case, and by degrees unmasks someone who at first appeared to be the least likely suspect as the real killer.
Title information
S. S. Van Dine
S.S. Van Dine was the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright (1888-1939) an American art critic and novelist. He was an important figure in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-WWI New York, and he created the immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance, a sleuth and aesthete who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in movies and on the radio.
