Stephen Van Dyne (1888–1939) was the pseudonym of Willard Huntington Wright. This American journalist, publisher, art historian and writer was the author of a number of articles in the Encyclopædia Britannica on theater and fine arts and… one of the founders of the “golden age of the detective”. He graduated from Harvard University. He worked as an editor and critic for newspapers in Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Wrote several books on painting, literature and music. They did not bring him fame, and then Wright turned to writing adventure novels. His constant hero is the amateur detective Philo Vance, a snob, erudite and admirer of the fine arts. In addition to the Vance series, Van Dyne has written several non-fiction books and screenplays, and developed the Twenty Rules for Writing Detectives. Some of his novels have been filmed.Death of the Canary, one of Van Dyne's finest novels published in this volume, takes the reader to New York City, where Philo Vance, an amateur detective, a literary relative of Sherlock Holmes, brilliantly uses the deductive method , finds the killer of a late-night Broadway star nicknamed Canary. The card game of poker helped to solve the problem ...