The Garden Murder Case

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The Garden Murder Case is the ninth Philo Vance novel written by S. S. Van Dine.

[edit] Plot outline

Professor Garden has a New York penthouse with a rooftop garden, and his son Floyd is accustomed to gather a group of socialite friends together in the Garden garden to listen to the results of horse-races over a built-in loudspeaker system. Philo Vance receives an anonymous telephone message that leads him to one such gathering, on a day when Floyd's best friend has placed an enormous bet on a horse named Equanimity. Equanimity loses, and a gunshot takes the life of the friend, but Vance determines that it is murder and not suicide. Some more suspicious events occur, including the attempted poisoning of Floyd's mother's private nurse, and the murder of his mother. Finally Vance solves the crime and arranges an opportunity for the murderer to be photographed attempting Vance's own life by pushing him off the garden balcony.

[edit] Literary significance and criticism

"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 third of the last six Vance books, or the ninth that is referred to in the quotation.

[edit] Film adaptation

The Garden Murder Case (1936) starred Edmund Lowe as Philo Vance, was directed by Edwin L. Marin and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

[edit] External links

The text of the novel is available from Project Gutenberg, Australia

[edit] References

1. ^ Symons, Julian, Bloody Murder, London: Faber and Faber 1972, with revisions in Penguin Books 1974, ISBN 0 14 003794 2

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