The Benson Murder Case

Summary

“Crimes possess all the basic factors of a work of art—approach, conception, technique, imagination, attack, method, and organization.”

The Benson Murder Case introduces S. S. Van Dine’s brilliant and iconic detective to the world in one of the most popular detective novels of the twentieth century, inspired by the real-life murder of a famous bridge player.

Alvin Benson is found slumped over an easy chair in a room locked from the inside with a bullet in his head, and Wall Street and the high society of Manhattan are set ablaze with the news of the playboy stockbroker’s death. But when NYPD’s top detectives and ballistics experts can’t solve the mystery, it falls to Philo Vance, an art connoisseur and amateur sleuth, to find the killer. Vance’s intellectual and artistic background helps him uncover a series of odd clues, starting with a missing toupee and false teeth, and soon he is delving deep into the case. In a Holmesian display of deduction, Vance also uses a recreation of the crime scene to determine several details about the killer—even down to their height. But he will have to uncover more than these small but vital details in order to find the real killer, deconstruct their alibi, and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they in fact killed Alvin Benson.