[.ca] Canary Murder Case (ISBN 0891905138)

The Beautiful but Fatal Canary:
S.S. Van Dine's book was The Canary Murder Case was the second in what supposed to be a trilogy. This mystery centers around with the murders of a sexy nightclub singer known as the Canary and her boyfriend.. It was also originally made into a silent movie with Louise Brooks as the Canary, but then the "talkies" came into being and it had to be reshot using sound. This is another example of the early 20's - 30's mystery with its art deco atmosphere. Philo Vance is a upper crust maven of the arts with a hobby of helping the New York police solve mysteries. William Powell was also in the early movie, but it would be wonderful if the movie be could shown just to Louise Brooks as the Canary.

A couple of original techniques:
Van Dine presented 2 techniques in this novel. One is a locked- room technique which Carr subsequently refered in his own novels. The other is an alibi established by victim's voice, which many readers may first encounter in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Dame Christie. However, apparently Christie had borrowed Van Dine's idea. One notable weakness of Van Dine's novel is that his hero, Mr. Vance, is a rather unpleasant fellow, who is not half as intelligent as Holmes, yet more than twice as arrogant. Holmes is a proletarian who works for money, while Vance is just a typical middle class snob.