The Garden Murder Case

The Garden Murder Case

File:TheGardenMurderCase.jpg First edition (US)
Author	S. S. Van Dine
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Philo Vance
Genre	Mystery fiction
Publisher	Scribner's (USA) Cassell (UK)
Publication date	1935
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Preceded by	The Casino Murder Case
Followed by	The Kidnap Murder Case

The Garden Murder Case (first published in 1935) is the ninth in a series of mystery novels by S. S. Van Dine about fictional detective Philo Vance.

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.

Literary significance and criticism

Crime novelist and critic Julian Symons wrote, "The decline in the last six Vance books is so steep that the critic who called the ninth of them [i.e. The Garden Murder Case] 'one more stitch in his literary shroud' was not overstating the case."

Film adaptation

Main article: The Garden Murder Case (film)

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

External links

• The text of the novel is available from Project Gutenberg, Australia
• The Garden Murder Case (1936 film) at IMDb