the poisoned chocolates case by anthony berkeley

How often they use false syllogisms to make the denouement convincing. Berkeley is clearly enjoying teasing the genre and exposing the tricks that detective novelists play. Oops! In the later chapters, Berkeley is very good at giving extremely convincing deductions – and then, in the next chapter, revealing why they were false conclusions and how the characters take false steps. And, of course, the person they’re accusing of murder.Ī couple of pretty unlikely solutions are given in the first chapters – but I have to admit that the third culprit/solution was the one I’d guessed from the outset. The brilliant thing about The Poisoned Chocolates Case is that each chapter gives a different solution, as the group take it in turns to present their detection and their conclusion. Later that night, both Bendixes – Bendices? – eat some chocolates, but Joan eats more. He rejects them – handing them to Graham Bendix. He received them in the post, purporting to be from the chocolatiers, looking for a sponser. The chocolates in question were given to her by her husband, but only because he bumped into Sir Eustace. Can the Crime Club help? The dead person is Joan Bendix – poisoned, as the title suggests, by chocolates. The police have given up the case as lost. I did have to make notes about who they all were, because he does a slightly unhelpful thing of telling you about them before he tells you their names – but it includes a dramatist, a detective novelist, an avant-garde writer, a solicitor, and a sort of timorous nobody. Roger Sheringham, who apparently appears in other Berkeley novels, has assembled a group of people to help him solve a murder.

It’s a great premise for a detective novel. Quite a lot of people have recommended The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929) by Anthony Berkeley as one of the best ones, and I’ve had it for yonks. Or, more precisely, piled high on top of a bookcase. F or #ReadIndies month, I had to pick up one of the many unread British Library Crime Classics I have on my shelf.

The poisoned chocolates case by anthony berkeley