The Winter Murder Case

It was characteristic of Willard Huntington Wright, known to the great public as S. S. Van Dine, that when he died suddenly on April 11, 1939, he left The Winter Murder Case in the form in which it is published, complete to the last comma. Everything he ever did was done that way, accurately, thoroughly, and with consideration for other people. It was so with the entire series of the Philo Vance mysteries.

He has himself told the story of becoming a writer of mysteries in an article called, "I Used to be a Highbrow, and Look at Me Now." He had worked as a critic of literature and art, and as an editor, since he left Harvard in 1907. And…