The Bishop Murder Case: A Philo Vance Story

New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1929. Photoplay Edition. Hard Cover. Good/No Jacket. 7x5x1. Photoplay edition. No jacket. Rear board soiled, pencil underlining and marginalia, pencil names on front endpapers. 1929 Hard Cover. viii, 349 pp. After solving the Greene murders, Philo Vance has taken a well-earned holiday in Switzerland. Returning to New York City he finds his old chum, District Attorney Anthony Markham, up against a bizarre series of murders inspired by children’s nursery rhymes. The first murder, involving a beautiful young woman and a private archery range, was apparently based on “Who Killed Cock Robin'”; it is followed by more hideous deaths referencing “Mother Goose.” But Philo Vance is not a man to be fobbed off with points to juvenilia. Markham and his colleagues may be worried that a certain Mr. H. Dumpty is riding for a great fall, but Philo Vance suspects a connection to a rather more sophisticated writer. In this “classic detective novel . . . a splendid example of the form . . . the game [is] played full out and to splendid effect” (Mystery File).