This early work by S. S. Van Dine was originally published in 1933 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introduction. 'The Dragon Murder Case' is one of Van Dine's novels of crime and mystery. S. S. Van Dine was born Willard Huntington Wright in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1888. He attended St. Vincent College, Pomona College and Harvard University, but failed to graduate, leaving to cultivate contacts he had made in the literary world. At the age of twenty-one, Wright began his professional writing career as literary editor of the Los Angeles Times. In 1926, Wright published his first S. S. Van Dine novel, The Benson Murder Case. Wright went on to write eleven more mysteries. The first few books about his upper-class amateur sleuth, Philo Vance, were so popular that Wright became wealthy for the first time in his life. His later books declined in popularity as the reading public's tastes in mystery fiction changed, but during the late twenties and early thirties his work was very successful.

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. A guest at an estate in northern Manhattan dives into the swimming pool and disappears. A guest at Inwood Hill Park, an estate in northern Manhattan, dives into the swimming pool and disappears. Has a mythological dragon which is said to prey on the imprudent anythin g to do with the murder? Philo Vance uses his knowledge of both dragons and criminals to demonstrate and solve the case.

A guest at Inwood Hill Park, an estate in northern Manhattan, dives into the swimming pool and disappears. Has a mythological dragon which is said to prey on the imprudent anythin g to do with the murder? Philo Vance uses his knowledge of both dragons and criminals to demonstrate and solve the case. American art critic Willard Huntington Wright, under the pseudonym of Dine when he wrote detective novels, was an important figure in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-WWI New York, and under the pseudonym (which he originally used to conceal his identity) he created the once 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.

Even in 1933 New York, the Stamm mansion was an anomaly--an estate in Inwood surrounded by woods. One hot night, members of a house party go for a swim. A young man dives into the pool--and disappears. Old Mrs. Stamm is mentally disturbed, but her repeated claims that a dragon lives in the pool and is responsible for the young man's death resonates sharply with the others in the house. Even the usually stolid police are disturbed by the atmosphere. Only Philo Vance, for all his talk about dragons, is able to cut through to the heart of the mystery

This early work by S. S. Van Dine was originally published in 1933 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introduction. 'The Kennel Murder Case' is one of Van Dine's novels of crime and mystery. S. S. Van Dine was born Willard Huntington Wright in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1888. He attended St. Vincent College, Pomona College and Harvard University, but failed to graduate, leaving to cultivate contacts he had made in the literary world. At the age of twenty-one, Wright began his professional writing career as literary editor of the Los Angeles Times. In 1926, Wright published his first S. S. Van Dine novel, The Benson Murder Case. Wright went on to write eleven more mysteries. The first few books about his upper-class amateur sleuth, Philo Vance, were so popular that Wright became wealthy for the first time in his life. His later books declined in popularity as the reading public's tastes in mystery fiction changed, but during the late twenties and early thirties his work was very successful.