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Goodness, it’s been a while since my last Anthony Berkeley review. In fact, I think my last one was Before the Fact, a book that he’d written as Francis Iles. It gets plenty of praise from critics such as Julian Symons, but I honestly could not see any of the subtle characterization or intricately-constructed suspense that they praised, and the ending was just flat-out stupid. And this was back in 2011! What on earth happened? I remember thinking of Berkeley as one of my favourite authors, and I wasn’t consciously avoiding his work… And so, to remedy the situation, I decided to read Berkeley’s other famous Francis Iles thriller, Malice Aforethought.

Malice Aforethought begins with a practically perfect opening paragraph: “It was not until several weeks after he had decided to murder his wife that Dr. Bickleigh took any active steps in the matter. Murder is a serious business. The slightest slip may be disastrous. Dr. Bickleigh had no intention of risking disaster.” That’s more or less all you need to know about the plot; this inverted detective-story shows you why Dr. Bickleigh decided to murder his wife, how he set about doing so (it’s an ingenious plot), and how he attempted to thwart off the resulting police investigation. The book is more of a thriller, as the reader wonders whether Dr. Bickleigh will get away with his crime.

A Predicament

... You've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

– Harry Callahan, Dirty Harry (1971)

After the success of The Floating Admiral, The Detection Club soon decided to do another round-robin novel entitled Ask a Policeman. The cast list was once again comprised of all-stars, but this time they were not quite as numerous. Six novelists combined their efforts into Ask a Policeman, namely Helen Simpson, Milward Kennedy, John Rhode, Anthony Berkeley, Gladys Mitchell, and Dorothy L. Sayers.

The plot is only a semi-serious one, although the parody elements never outweigh the detection elements. A rich, despised-by-all newspaper tycoon is shot dead at his house, with a plethora of suspects playing a complex game of ring-around-the-rosy around the scene of the crime. But, as luck would have it, these suspects happen to include an Archbishop, the Chief Whip of a political party, and an Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard. But for good measure, you can throw in the dead man’s secretary and a Mysterious Lady, as well as a suspicious butler and other members of the domestic staff.

Trial by Stupidity

I love the stuff written by Anthony Berkeley, and was looking forward to reacquainting myself with his work. I decided to go with something written under his Francis Iles pseudonym: Before the Fact, which was adapted into the Hitchcock film Suspicion. However, I hesitate to call Before the Fact a mystery at all, since the only mystery is just how stupid the heroine is.

Lina McLaidlaw marries Johnnie Aysgarth, despite the warnings from her family, particularly her father, who says the Aysgarth clan is rotten stock. But Lina believes she can rehabilitate little Johnnie— he’s her little child and she so desperately wants what’s best for him. Of course, unknown to her, Johnnie is a murderer, something we find out in the very first paragraph of the book. And at first, Before the Fact is an excellent portrayal of an insecure woman desperately clinging to a love affair, no matter how unhealthy and unwise it is for her. That lasts about eight chapters.

The Great E-Book Debate

I was not expecting its arrival any time soon...

For years I have resisted the e-book revolution. While I could see the advantages of an e-book reader, I simply didn’t see myself using one. The books I’d like to read aren’t available on the format, I said, so why bother getting one? It seemed pointless…

But I’ve finally given in. What does this mean? Will I convert to the Kindle and regard printed books with disdain? Can mystery readers look forward to an imminent auctioning off of my small collection?

Briefly put, the answer is a resounding no. I love printed books and will always remain devoted to them. But there were several factors that pushed me into finally purchasing an e-reader. And so I’d like to share with you the Top 6 Reasons I Bought a Kindle. Why Top 6? Because it’s a nice, round number and I have no better reason. Here goes:

...And not placing reliance on ... Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo-Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence or the Act of God...

The Detection Club was officially formed in 1930, and to become a member, you had to honour its core principle of “fair play”, i.e. giving readers the chance to arrive at the truth before the detective does by presenting all the clues. However, once admitted to the Club, it essentially became a social gathering.

Curt Evans takes a close look at the Detection Club in his essay Was Corinne’s Murder Clued?: The Detection Club and Fair Play, 1930-1953, which has been released as CADS supplement #14 and can be bought by contacting Geoff Bradley at Geoffcads@aol.com. It takes a look at The Detection Club and how it treated the concept of fair-play… and how the eventual death blows were self-inflicted.

A Party to Die For

Mr. Pidgeon is a truly extraordinary fellow. A few months ago, he was a humble university lecturer, but after suddenly coming into an enormous fortune, he’s had pots of money and no idea what to do with it. So he does a very reasonable thing: he buys an island off the Portuguese government and purchases a splendid yacht and invites a group of quite ordinary people for the maiden voyage. It happens in Anthony Berkeley’s Panic Party, which sometimes gets the alternate title Mr. Pidgeon’s Island.

This voyage follows in the proud tradition of the Titanic, as the ship malfunctions off the coast of the island and the passengers are marooned there so that the boat can get repaired. Nobody is very happy about this, but Mr. Pidgeon is pleased as punch and proposes a game everyone can play to pass the time: one of the people on the island, he claims, is a murderer, and he has conclusive proof of their crime that will go to the police upon return to England. He even proposes prizes, but by more or less unanimous consent, people refuse to partake in the game. Later, however, Pidgeon confides to one of the passengers, amateur sleuth Roger Sheringham, that the entire game is a hoax cooked up just for the stay, which he’s engineered—the group is completely cut off from the outside world and will have to cooperate until the boat returns in a fortnight, or murder could be done.

Trial and Error

As I said when I reviewed R. Austin Freman’s The Eye of Osiris, I intend to take a look at various Crime Kings from the Golden Age of Detection—male authors to whom time has been unkind. The females have done a bit better—Agatha Christie is still in print, and you can regularly find stuff on a bookstore’s shelves by Margery Allingham, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh. But Anthony Berkeley Cox’s case is a truly tragic one. Berkeley was in his time an extremely prolific author and the founder of The Detection Club in 1928. He wrote under the names Anthony Berkeley and Francis Iles. DeAndrea argues in Encyclopedia Mysteriosa that:

… It was as Francis Iles that he made his greatest contribution to the genre, writing novels not of detection but of criminal procedure. His belief was that the mystery story was transforming into a “puzzle of character”, and he did his best to lead the way. Malice Aforethought (1931) is told from the point of view of a weasely doctor who intends to murder his wife and does so. In Before the Fact (1932), Iles pulls off the even more remarkable trick of chronicling the events leading up to a murder from the point of view of the neurotic young wife who is the intended victim. With the ending altered and the name changed to Suspicion, this became a classic Alfred Hitchcock film.

I will be looking at a Berkeley title instead of an Iles- I will review Malice Aforethought some other time. But I have a question: how is it that an author so talented goes from having a novel adapted by Alfred Hitchcock to the quagmire of obscurity? Berkeley was a grandmaster and deserves better recognition than he has gotten. Thankfully, The Langtail Press has reprinted a slew of books by Anthony Berkeley. If you haven’t read Berkeley, I definitely recommend checking him out… and the book Top Storey Murder (which TLP hasn’t gotten around to reprinting, though I hope they do) is a solid example of his work.

The Murder Game

First and foremost, I must take the time to applaud the efforts of James Pritchard, Agatha Christie’s great-grandson, who has created his own company, The Langtail Press, and has busily been resurrecting lost classics from the void of obscurity back into print—particularly those written by Anthony Berkeley.

I had previously read only one Berkeley novel, The Poisoned Chocolates Case, which was a brilliant tour-de-force in which at least half a dozen false solutions are proposed. I enjoyed the novel tremendously, as it was written with intelligence and wit, and I could hardly wait for the chance to read another Berkeley novel. At last, I selected Jumping Jenny and ordered it from The Langtail Press’ impressive catalogue.