"A model of everything a detective story should be – a monument, a cathedral amongst detective stories." -Arnold Palmer in the London Sphere.

"It is difficult now to grasp the extent of Van Dine's success in America, and to a much lesser extent in Britain. ... Van Dine's second book was on the American best-seller lists for months ... It was said that he had lifted the detective story on to the plane of a fine art, and by his own account he was the favourite crime writer of two Presidents." - Julian Symons

When the celebrity of New York: Margaret "The Canary" Odell is found strangled in her apartment, District Attorney John FX Markham initially thinks it a commonplace robbery and murder. But his learned friend and amateur sleuth Philo Vance disagrees, and soon persuades him that this isn't a robbery at all... but murder...

The lines of inquiry lead to four men, but which one of them did it? Which one of them had the nerve and daring for such an audacious crime as... The Canary Murder?

Narrated by Michael Ward