The Canary Murder Case

Let us begin by promising that no actual birds are harmed in this story. The Canary of the title is Margaret Odell, once a showgirl in the Ziegfeld Follies, more recently an occasional nightclub singer and professional good time. When she is murdered, there are any number of suspects, all of the male variety. The police, of course, are baffled—it was ever thus—but happily, Philo Vance is on the scene, ready to apply his brilliance, his erudition, his astonishingly nuanced grasp of human nature to the solving of the crime. British crime writer and critic Julian Symons once noted that “It is difficult to grasp the extent of Van Dine’s success,” but a success he surely was: Canary stayed on bestseller lists for months, and was filmed with William Powell and Louise Brooks. Will you cozy up to Philo Vance? Unlikely. But you’ll have a dandy time.