This edition includes: The Philo Vance Series The Benson Murder Case The Canary Murder Case The Greene Murder Case The Bishop Murder Case The Scarab Murder Case The Kennel Murder Case The Dragon Murder Case The Casino Murder Case The Garden Murder Case The Kidnap Murder Case The Gracie Allen Murder Case The Winter Murder Case Other Works Modern Painting: Its Tendency and Meaning Misinforming a Nation Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories S. S. Van Dine is the pseudonym used by American art critic Willard Huntington Wright when he wrote detective novels. He was an important figure in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-WWI New York, and under the pseudonym he created the immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance. Wright was, however, most respected in intellectual circles for his writing about art, best known of which is the book Modern Painting: Its Tendency and Meaning.

When Archer Coe, a collector of Chinese ceramics, is found dead in his bedroom with the door bolted on the inside, everybody from the district attorney to the medical examiner regards it as suicide. But detective Philo Vance suspects a sinister and carefully crafted murder. Although the circumstances surrounding the death of Archer Coe are so mysterious and contradictory that for a time no solution seems possible, the brilliant Philo Vance brings the case to an unexpected but satisfying conclusion in the end. The Kennel Murder Case, first published in 1933, moves swiftly with one mystery following another until the clever resolution. It is considered one of the best of Philo Vance novels in the series for its interesting characterization and gripping action and suspense.

The intriguing story and turbulent history of a paper Charles Dickens praised for its ‘range of information and profundity of knowledge’, and which Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, simply endorsed with the remark: ‘Of course I read The Sporting Life’. It was the Queen Mother’s love of horseracing that made her such an avid reader of the Life and coverage of that sport forms the core of this book, but there is so much more to fascinate the reader including eyewitness accounts of the first fight for the heavyweight championship of the world and Captain Webb’s heroic Channel swim of 1875. Highlights in the history of cricket, football and rugby are also featured, while chapters on coursing and greyhound racing rank alongside surreal reports on ratting contests and songbird singing competitions. And for 30 years Tommy Wisdom made his motoring reports unique by competing against the best at Brooklands, Le Mans and in many Monte Carlo rallies, while Henry Longhurst’s golfing column was simply the best. The paper’s strident campaigns for racing reforms are also chronicled along with its coverage of major news stories, from Fred Archer’s shocking suicide to its own untimely demise. Its travails in the law courts are documented from its first year, when it was forced to change its title, to its last, when it had to pay libel damages to the training team of Lynda and Jack Ramsden and their jockey, Kieren Fallon. A higher price was paid by its French correspondent who was killed in a duel over an article he had written, while the terrible toll the First World War took on the nation’s sporting heroes is catalogued by the Life’s embedded army correspondent, against a background of political bungling that is being repeated today.