The Winter Murder Case

infobox Book |
name = The Winter Murder Case
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = S. S. Van Dine
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = Philo Vance
genre = Mystery novel
publisher = Charles Scribner's Sons
release_date = 1939
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 174 pp
isbn = NA
preceded_by = The Gracie Allen Murder Case
followed_by =

"The Winter Murder Case" (1939) is in fact a Philo Vance novella that S. S. Van Dine intended to expand into his twelfth full length book, a project cut short by his death. "The Winter Murder Case" seems especially similar to the B mystery movies of the 1930s, a cross between Van Dine's usual style and the film style. It was intended as a vehicle for Sonja Henie.

Van Dine's last two books were intended as Hollywood scenarios. Both are shorter than Van Dine's typical novels.

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

"This is (Van Dine's) last work, left in an only semi-expanded outline form at the time of his death. Philo Vance is still the detective but the pseudo-scholarly footnotes are not in evidence nor is the pearl-handled telephone. In fact, this short book is pleasant reading; add your own nostalgia if you wish."Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. "A Catalogue of Crime". New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. ISBN 0-06-015796-8]

External links

The text of the novel is available [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0700281.txt here] from Project Gutenberg, Australia. Also contained in this file is the author's essay, "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories".

References