The "Canary" Murder Case

August 15, 2023
A heavily and appropriately annotated reprinting of Philo Vance's celebrated second case, first published in 1927. When showgirl Margaret Odell, widely known as the Canary, is strangled in her West Side apartment, the obvious suspects are the men she was most recently involved with, all of whom seem to have been engaged in mysterious activities: neurologist Ambroise Lindquist, whose love for his patient was unrequited; manufacturer Kenneth Spotswoode, the beau who dropped her off shortly before she was killed; career politician Charles "Pop" Cleaver, whom she threw over for Spotswoode; and raffish fur importer Louis Mannix. But District Attorney John F.-X. Markham and homicide Sgt. Ernest Heath focus instead on Tony Skeel, a burglar who was almost certainly inside the Canary's apartment, either as a witness or as a perp, at the moment of her death. Vance, the famously irritating dilettante friend of Markham's, offers to help out with the case. The main assistance he provides for most of the running time is supplying a stream of facetious allusions and foreign phrases that editor Leslie S. Klinger conscientiously translates. The murder of Skeel seems to render the case unsolvable until Vance, disclaiming physical evidence for psychology, invites the surviving suspects to an evening at poker, after which he throws out all the previously assembled clues in favor of his sublime assurance that he can now identify the killer. The solution, which hinges on one of the most notorious clich�s in golden age detective fiction--Agatha Christie used it twice, and it begs to be added to the list of forbidden devices that conclude Van Dine's appended "Twenty Rules for Detective Stories"--will surprise most readers a lot less than the sleuths on the case. An annoying but undeniable landmark in the history of the genre.

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