Van Dine, SS - The Casino Murder Case

Philo Vance receives an anonymous letter warning of dire happenings within the wealthy Llewellyn family. At Kinkaid's Casino, on the following evening, Vance is present as young Lynn Llewellyn collapses - poison is suspected - and learns, shortly afterwards that Lynn's glamorous wife has died in mysterious circumstances. With the aid of District Attorney John Markham and Van Dine himself (Vance's “Watson” figure) he sets out to unravel the mystery and nail the murderer. Never having read Van Dine, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, on this showing at least, Vance is a considerably more interesting figure than some critics have suggested.

Like many Golden Age sleuths, he is much given to pontification with a fund of obscure quotations and literary references but he is more than that, switching from lazy insouciance to urgency as needs dictate and, sometimes, becoming less cold - blooded in his dealings with “suspects”. It must be said that Markham comes across as being somewhat ineffectual considering his public status -- he allows Vance to lead at all times, conduct all interrogations and, ultimately, make all decisions -- and Van Dine, the chronicler, is nothing more than a cypher but then, this is Golden Age and these are minor quibbles.

The plot remains intriguing throughout and the murder method, when finally revealed, is fascinating and worth waiting for. Also - huge bonus! - the writing style is clear and direct avoiding unnecessarily convoluted sentences and tedious descriptive passages. Interrogation scenes are interesting rather than plodding and repetitious and the story is paced well with enough variety of location to cut off any charge of “stageiness”. All in all, a thoroughly entertaining read: I look forward to enjoying the other Vances.

Alan P.

"You learned a hell of a lot!...This house is just a bunch of stenographers." --Sergeant Heath

I found this line quite humorous for some reason, so could not resist quoting.  Vance gets an anonymous typed letter (see stenographer comment above), warning him of dire goings-on among the wealthy Llewllyn family: cold, society matriarch, do-nothing son, son's former actress (I believe it was) wife, modern daughter and matriarch's brother, who runs the casino of the title.  Sure enough, that night son, his wife and daughter are poisoned, the son at the casino and the wife and daughter at the Llewellyn house, one of those classic brownstones that crowd the pages of Van Dine tales.  The wife expires, but the son and daughter recover.

The story that develops is pretty interesting, the question of the poisoning method making it rather resemble a John Rhode mystery (from comments in the tale I couldn't help but wonder whether Van Dine hadn't read Rhode's The Claverton Mystery, which came out the year before).  Vance is pretty sober here, giving no egregious lectures (there were only fourteen footnotes by my count), and actually does some solid practical investigation, including a side trip to New Jersey with the ever-compliant Van, who, consummate toady as ever, makes sure to note that Vance is an excellent driver (Markham does nothing in this one but take orders from Vance).  Recently discovered "heavy water" becomes a prominent matter in the tale.  Some reviewers of the book and film adapted from it seem to think this heavy water business silly, but I thought it quite good.  Interestingly, Vance mentions consulting the real-life Princeton Professor of Chemistry, Hugh Stott Taylor.

Contrary to assertions often made about Van Dine's decline in the thirties, this tale is quite competently done and makes enjoyable reading today, 75 years after it was first published.

My biggest complaint with this book is the plot of the killer, the son, to implicate his uncle as the murderer.  I understand the heavy water idea was to lead to the uncle, but since we're told that it had not been determined that heavy water actually could kill a human, how was the son expecting a conviction to be obtained?  Also, the son poisoned himself and planned to poison his mother with non-lethal doses (the daughter got the mother's poison instead), so that they would not be suspected (the son has an Oedipus complex, we're told).  But what would the uncle's motive have been for poisoning his nephew, his sister and his nephew's wife?  I suppose it must have been something to do with inheritance, but how exactly?  I must have missed something.

Nick Fuller.