The Dragon Murder Case (Otto Penzler's 1st Edition Library)

Rating:
Summary: Philo Vance and the Dragon
Review: I became a fan on S.S. Van Dine after seeing the movie, Kennel Murder Mystery, with William Powell. Philo Vance though is not William Powell.

Philo Vance is an elitist, a snob of the first order. He is erudite of all aspects of finer things, but he loves solving complex mysteries. Readings these Van Dine books, one is taken back into the era of the 20's and 30's with all its art deco, martinis and affluent society--the Great Depression never being mentioned.

In Dragon Pool, Sanford Montague (a very upper crust name) dives into his rather swimming pool known as the Dragon Pool because it is believed a dragon lives beneath its depths. Montague comes up missing and later found drowned. Was it the Dragon? Or was it one of his weekend guests. That is for Philo Vance to discover.

Rating:
Summary: There isn't such a thing as a dragon.
Review: Philo Vance in this novel investigated a double murder case in which the victims were supposedly killed by a legendary dragon. Vance's extensive knowledge in dragon lore was attributed to the solution of the case, in fact, it's just another lengthy and pointless lecture. After all, since Holmes' Case of Veiled Lodger, everyone knows that any animal, legendary or not, can easily be impersonated by human being, while the techniques are prosaically limited.

Rating:
Summary: Vance Can't Dance
Review: Philo Vance is certainly as insufferable as advertised; the other characters are purely functional: they are here to marvel at his astounding genius; to fume at his irascibility and be confounded by his unerring instincts, and, of course, to fill the pages with plausible suspects for the crime du jour. The humor is so dry you're not sure if it's really there. This one never quite catches fire, but it's never quite draggin', either (hee, hee). It's wittily written and entertaining enough, and boy, did they do dustjackets right in those days! Thanks again to Otto Penzler for a beautiful edition in this series of facsimile-firsts, which richly deserves to be continued.