UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND AUTHOR · FICTION · DETECTIVE AND MYSTERY
Anthony Berkeley
Also known as: Anthony Berkeley Cox, Frances Iles
Anthony Berkeley Cox was an English crime writer who wrote as Anthony Berkeley, Frances Iles, and A. Monmouth Platts.
Most acclaimed
The Poisoned Chocolates Case
1986
Sir Eustace is a cad of the first water, with a specialty in other men's wives, and the list of people who might want to do him in could fill a London phone book. But which of them actually sent the chocolates with their nasty hidden payload? Scotland Yard is baffled. Enter the Crime Circle, a group of society intellectuals with a shared conviction in their ability to succeed where the police have failed. Eventually, each member will produce a tightly reasoned solution to the Case of the Poisoned Chocolates, but each of those solutions will identify a different murderer. First published in 1929, this is both a classic of the golden age of mystery fiction, and one of the great puzzle-mysteries of all time.
Ask A Policeman
Lord Comstock is a barbarous newspaper tycoon with enemies in high places. His murder in the study of his country house poses a dilemma for the Home Secretary. In the hours before his death, Lord Comstock’s visitors included the government Chief Whip, an Archbishop, and the Assistant Commissioner for Scotland Yard. Suspicion falls upon them all and threatens the impartiality of any police investigation. Abandoning protocol, the Home Secretary invites four famous detectives to solve the case: Mrs Adela Bradley, Sir John Saumarez, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Mr Roger Sheringham. All are different, all are plausible, all are on their own – and none of them can ask a policeman... To produce this classic whodunit, the Detection Club adopted a completely new approach: Milward Kennedy proposed the title, John Rhode plotted the murder and provided the suspects, and four of their contemporaries were asked to lend their well-known detectives to the task of providing solutions to the crime. But there was to be another twist: the authors would swap detectives and use the characters in their sections of the book. Thus Gladys Mitchell and Helen Simpson swapped Mrs Bradley and Sir John Saumarez, and Dorothy Sayers and Anthony Berkeley swapped Lord Peter Wimsey and Roger Sheringham, enabling the authors to indulge in skilful and sly parodies of each other. The contributors are: John Rhode, Helen Simpson, Gladys Mitchell, Anthony Berkeley, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Milward Kennedy.
Before the fact
"Some women give birth to murderers, some go to bed with them. Lina Aysgarth had lived with her husband for nearly eight years before she realized that she was married to a murderer." Johnny was delightful—and Lina loved him desperately. But his devastating charm was combined with a complete lack of both morals and income. Slowly Lina discovered what such a combination led to. The first indications seemed trivial, especially since, in his childish way, Johnny loved her. Not for along time did she realize that he had killed, and was planning to kill again. Made into the famous Cary Grant-Joan Fontaine motion picture Suspicion, this story has seldom been surpassed for sheer, blood-curdling suspense. As one reviewer said, "it induces such a There-butfor-the-Grace-of-God sensation that one remains shivering for hours."