The Benson Murder Case

S.S. van Dine is the pen name of Willard Huntington Wright who wrote 13 best-selling crime novels and his amateur detective, Philo Vance was later immortalized on screen by William Powell in The Canary Murder Case. At age 21, Wright began his professional writing career as literary editor of the Los Angeles Times, where – describing himself as "Esthetic expert and psychological shark" – he was known for his scathing book reviews and irreverent opinions. He was particularly caustic about romance and detective fiction. Wright also decided to try his own hand at detective fiction and approached Maxwell Perkins, the legendary Scribner's editor whom he had known at Harvard, with an outline for a trilogy that would feature an affluent, snobbish amateur sleuth, a Jazz Age Manhattan setting, and lively topical references. In 1926, the first Philo Vance book, The Benson Murder Case, was published under the pseudonym "S.S. Van Dine". Within two years, following the publication of The Canary Murder Case and The Greene Murder Case, Wright was one of the best-selling authors in the United States, a fact that embarrassed him and he chose to keep his identity under wraps.