which Willard Wright--aka S.S. Van Dine , author of the Philo Vance yarns--covertly probes the World War I-era transportation of munitions aboard the soon-to-be-torpedoed RMS Lusitania ), and 2004’s The London Blitz Murders (sending Agatha Christie to figure out the identity of a modern-day Jack the Ripper in bomb-ravaged, 1942 London).