Few people are as surprised as me at how much I’ve enjoyed the opening novels of S.S. van Dine’s career. They’re not fair play detection of the sort I’d like, but as an example of rigorous police work alongside an amateur dilettante they’re swiftly-plotted, lightly-written, and a very pleasing way to pass a few hours. And the fourth in the series, The Bishop Murder Case (1929), improves on the previous three in the matter of the killer not being frankly bloody obvious well before the halfway stage. Sure, you have to swallow a few coincidences, but, meh, where would classic detection be without that? Did anyone ever complain that Hercule Poirot or Perry Mason always happened to be on the scene of a murder? Think of what we’d have missed! Kick back and enjoy, that’s what I say.

The murder this time around is not that of a bishop, but instead of promising archer Joseph Cochrane Robin — not, thankfully, known as ‘Cock’, but nevertheless found with an arrow in his chest having just been hanging out with a love rival with an aptly relevant name. Echoes are found in the famous nursery rhyme, and a note pointing this out is sent to the New York papers, signed THE BISHOP. And so it begins.

“So it’s a real murder mystery, is it — with a corpse, and clews, and all the trappings? May I be entrusted with the tale?”

As before, District Attorney John F.-X. Markham brings in man-of-all-trades Philo Vance, and the two banter back and forth while murders echoing the theme of this first, with notes sent to the papers after each one, occur regularly and Vance insists that psychology is the only way to get to the root of things. This is, of course, not my first Vance’s rodeo, and I was pretty well-prepared for what was going on here, and as a fan of the man’s career to date I was pleased that this unfolded along more or less the expected pattern.

Van Dine isn’t content to merely repeat himself, however, with more work going into the ancillary characters this time — mostly consisting of a set of mathematicians and chess fanatics who, despite their common interest, are kept distinct through consistent portrayal of their attitudes. From the tolerant benevolence of Professor Dillard, around whose house so much of the slaughter centres, to the confrontational hunchback Drukker whose “mind is like a furnace that’s burning his body up”, and his melodramatic elderly mother who is fatally obsessed with the wrong she feels she did him in his youth, Van Dine is to be commended on the clarity of the people herein. I’ll remember them far more than anyone beyond the repeating characters who featured in the earlier books, and not just because of Vance’s lengthy and amusing categorisation of mathematicians.

There’s also the university lecturer Sigurd Arnesson, who, in order to test his theory that “mathematics is the basis of all truth however far removed from scholastic abstractions”, asks to be included in the facts of the investigation so that he might construct an equation that will identify the murderer. I’ve seen this elsewhere talked about as if Arnesson is in competition with Vance, paving the way for the sort of ‘duel of detectives’ that most series try to work in at some point — c.f The Murder on the Links (1923) by Agatha Christie, The Eight of Swords (1934) by John Dickson Carr, and countless others. In truth, nothing really comes of this, Vance and Arnesson on very friendly terms throughout, and so it’s an odd narrative choice to introduce the conceit and do so little with it, implying that maybe even Van Dine himself wasn’t sure about it.

“There’s far too much emotion in the world. Passion is not going to solve this case. Cerebration is our only hope. Let us be calm and thoughtful.”

Once again, the solution is reached by wonky psychology and a complete absence of any actual clues, furthering my appreciation of Ellery Queen taking this as their model, because for all its success there is that very noticeable absence at the heart of these books. Markham remains stoic, Van Dine makes an amusing narrator — the footnotes remain entirely irrelevant to the plot, but crucial to enjoying the fun — and there’s something new in the denouement, I’ll give Van Dine that…even if I do wish he’d follow his own damn rules and actually include some evidence to point the reader to the guilty party for once. Also, thanks to Sergio’s review, I know that my Fawcett Gold Medal edition pictured above is missing this map, which is a shame if hardly crucial:

All told, I continue to enjoy Van Dine, almost because of his shortcomings where clewing is concerned. A swift, intelligent, archly-communicated time that will veer suddenly across three lanes of traffic to deliver a terminal surprise is precisely what I’m after when I pick up these books now, and to get that makes me very happy. If the books fall a little short, I can at least understand why they were so popular in their day, and I look forward to spending more time with Vance & Co. in 2026 and beyond.

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S.S. van Dine on The Invisible Event