5 MAY 1928, Page 30

THE. GREENE MURDER . CASE. By S. _S. Van Dine.

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{Bern. 7s. 6d.) Such is Mr. Van Dine's flair for plausibility that we are almost hoodwinked into believing that we are reading about an actual cause calibre of the American police annals. The crime was committed in an old-fashioned, walled-in mansion in New York. Julia Greene, a member of an ancient and wealthy family, is found dead, while her sister Ada is wounded. Ada's temperament, motives, and methods, so mysterious and so tantalizing in their gradual nnravehnent, are strilingly original in conception. Philo Vance, the detective who won fame for the author's previous story, The Benson Murder Case, is reintroduced.