The Scarab Murder Case
novel by S. S. Van Dine
The Scarab Murder Case (1930) is a classic whodunit written by S. S. Van Dine. In this book, detective Philo Vance's murder investigation takes place in a private home that doubles as a museum of Egyptology, and the solution depends in part on Vance's extensive knowledge of Egyptian history and customs, which enable him to sort through suggestions of godly vengeance and reveal the misdirections perpetrated by the real murderer.
Literary significance and criticism
Some reviewers "were disgusted by the author's bland insults to the reader's intelligence -- e.g., the heavy Egyptian statue in the gallery, upended on a piece of a pencil and conveniently toppling onto the intended victim. By that time, they were fed up with the whole bag of tricks, which successive settings did not rejuvenate."
Film adaptation
The Scarab Murder Case (1936) starred Wilfrid Hyde-White as Vance.
“The Scarab Murder Case” enters the record as novel by S. S. Van Dine. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Scarab, Murder and Case can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“The Scarab Murder Case” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Scarab, Murder and Case provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3822037. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930 and 1936.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Scarab Murder Case” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.