Benson Murder Case - A Philo Vance Story

A stockbroker is found dead in his Gramercy Park home, a pistol in his hand, the case ruled suicide. The police see an open-and-shut conclusion. Philo Vance sees a lie. Vance is no detective in the hard-boiled mold: he is a languid aesthete, a collector of Tang dynasty sculpture and old master drawings, a man who speaks French in his sleep and quotes the Greek poets over cocktails. His weapon is not a gun but an intellect so precise it becomes almost cruel. With the casual arrogance of the leisure class and the curiosity of a born provocateur, he dismantles the polite fictions of 1920s Manhattan society to find the truth rotting at its core. This was the novel that launched one of detective fiction's most enduring and controversial figures. Vance would go on to populate dozens of films, radio shows, and stage adaptations. He remains an enigma: a snob, a wit, a man of refine sensibility who solves murders by understanding beauty and its discontents.