The Kennel Murder Case

Given the number of rich people getting bumped off in Philo Vance’s Manhattan, it’s amazing there are enough left to support the symphony. Latest up: Arthur Coe, found dead in his own locked bedroom. Suicide? The ever-perceptive Philo doesn’t buy that theory for a second, especially since Coe is sporting not only a bullet hole but also clear signs of having been stabbed repeatedly and whacked with a blunt object. The presence in Coe’s house of a strange, prize-winning terrier only adds to the mystery, although Philo’s fabulously in-depth knowledge of dogs does not in fact solve the crime; his fabulously in-depth knowledge of the murder of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria in 1898 proves much more useful.

Like most of the “Philo Vance” novels, Kennel was made into a movie, directed this time by Michael Curtiz, who a few years later would turn his hand to a little number known as Casablanca. At least one critic has called the film a “masterpiece,” and though we make no similar claim for the book, GoodMysteries.com, dedicated to the art of the classic whodunit, calls Kennel “one of the best locked-room setups ever written.”