"The Greene Murder Case" focuses on the murders, one by one, of members of the wealthy and contentious Greene family. The family comprises two sons and three daughters under the rule of their mother, a bedridden invalid who spends her days feeling sorry for herself and cursing her ungrateful children. The family is required to live in the Greene mansion under the terms of their father's will. Philo Vance takes a hand when, one evening, a daughter of the Greene family is shot to death and another one is wounded.

S. S. Van Dine is the pseudonym used by American art critic Willard Huntington Wright when he wrote detective novels. He was an important figure in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-WWI New York, and under the pseudonym he created the immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance.