The Winter Murder Case

Like The Gracie Allen Murder Case, Winter was written with a film in mind, and as a vehicle for a particular actress – in this case, the ice-skater Sonja Henie. In that sense, the two books stand in marked contrast to the rest of the Philo canon, but it would be a mistake to lump them together: Gracie Allenis actually quite appealing, in large part because Ms. Allen’s scatterbrained persona makes such a charming foil for Philo’s stuffed-shirt pretensions. Ms. Henie provided no such inspiration, and though Van Dine did not live long enough to see her outed as a Nazi-supporter, her saccharine ice-princess schtick offered little for Philo to play against. In fairness, it should be noted that Winter was published after Van Dine’s death, and there is a strong suggestion that he did not regard it as ready for publication: Some have claimed that he wrote all his novels in three, versions, each an elaboration of what had gone before, and that only the final version was presented for publicatio