Publisher's Synopsis
Playboy stockbroker, Alvin Benson, is found in his brownstone mansion with a bullet through his head. First on the scene is Philo Vance, amateur detective, who is at once intrigued by the absence of Alvin's toupee and his false teeth. With a jigsaw of odd clues he sets off in pursuit of an elusive murderer, making obvious his disdain for the professional crime-solvers of the police and the DA's office. To him, they seem to be hopelessly addicted to the pernicious practice of looking for physical clues and circumstantial evidence. His own theory is that psychology is the key. American art critic Willard Huntington Wright, under the pseudonym of Dine when he wrote detective novels, was an important figure in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-WWI New York, and under the pseudonym (which he originally used to conceal his identity) he created the once immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance, a sleuth and aesthete who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in movies and on the radio.
