Showing results by author "Anthony Berkeley" in All Categories

Ambrose Chitterwick is in the lounge of the Piccadilly Palace Hotel, away from his overbearing aunt, to enjoy some afternoon refreshments when he witnesses a murder. It looks like suicide but he saw something being put into the lady’s coffee cup. He is Scotland Yard’s chief witness but he also conducts an investigation of his own. Despite his diffidence and self-deprecation, his sleuthing is not to be sniffed at. There are plenty of twists and turns in this journey to enjoy, especially with master narrator David Timson in the driving seat.

Graham and Joan Bendix have apparently succeeded in making that eighth wonder of the modern world, a happy marriage. And into the middle of it there drops, like a clap of thunder, a box of chocolates. Joan Bendix is killed by a poisoned box of liqueur chocolates that cannot have been intended for her to eat. The police investigation rapidly reaches a dead end. Chief Inspector Moresby calls on Roger Sheringham and his Crimes Circle - six amateur but intrepid detectives - to consider the case.

When two newlyweds move into their new home, only to discover that a corpse has been buried in their basement a few months prior, a case is begun to trace the identity of the victim. With all avenues of investigation approaching exhaustion, a tenuous lead offers a chance for Chief Inspector Moresby and leads him to the amateur criminologist Roger Sheringham, who has recently been providing cover work in a school south of London. Desperate for evidence of any kind, Moresby begins to sift through the manuscript of a satirical novel Sheringham had been writing about his colleagues.

At a costume party with the dubious theme of 'famous murderers and their victims', the know-it-all amateur criminologist Roger Sheringham is settled in for an evening of beer, small talk and analysing his companions. One guest in particular has caught his attention for her theatrics, and his theory that she might have several enemies among the partygoers proves true when she is found hanging from the 'decorative' gallows on the roof terrace. Noticing a key detail which could implicate a friend in the crime, Sheringham decides to meddle with the scene.

In a creative twist, a fatally ill man’s great humanitarian act is to seek out and kill someone deserving of death; but the horror of an innocent man being accused of the murder was not an outcome Mr Todhunter, or the friends who advised him, considered. His job is then to prove his own guilt. Dedicated to P.G. Wodehouse, the story is suspenseful, inventive and humorous, with a riveting attention to detail and a profound suggestion of the absurdity of trying to influence destiny.

In the heart of London, the daughter of a humble country parson mysteriously disappears. As fear and desperation set in, her father reaches out to amateur detective, Roger Sheringham. The case takes a dark turn when the girl is found dead - her life ended by her own silk stocking. Although initially believed to be a suicide, a disturbing pattern emerges when more young women are found dead in eerily similar circumstances. Faced with the chilling possibility of a serial killer, Sheringham must unravel the tangled threads of these tragic deaths. Are they mere copycat suicides, or is a sinister ...

Just as Roger and his cousin Anthony are about to embark on a much-needed vacation, a perplexing phone call from Scotland Yard alters their plans. Theyre rushed off to Hampshire to delve into the mysterious circumstances surrounding the disappearance and potential murder of Mrs. Vane. Initially deemed an accident by local authorities and media, Scotland Yard isnt convinced. Enter Roger Sheringham, the amateur detective, to uncover the truth hidden beneath the surface of this seemingly innocuous case. - Summary by Lynne T

Anthony Berkeley was a journalist, novelist, and founding member of the Detection Club - whose members included Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers - and was one of crime fiction's greatest innovators, developing the idea of the psychological crime novel in the 1920s and '30s. One of his recurring and most-beloved characters was Roger Sheringham, a novelist and amateur detective. In these two classic tales, Roger Sheringham must investigate two terrible murders

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 16 tales from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form. The Golden Age of detective fiction had begun inauspiciously with the publication of E.C. Bentley’s schismatic Trent’s Last Case in 1913...

Republished for the first time in nearly 95 years, a classic winter country house mystery by the founder of the Detection Club, with a twist that even Agatha Christie couldn’t solve! Stephen Munro, a demobbed army officer, reconciles himself to taking a job as a footman to make ends meet...

In the comfortable English Dorsetshire village of Anneypenny in the 1930s, fruit farmer Douglas Sewell–narrator of the story–sees his friend John die in agony. The death certificate states gastric ulcers but the post mortem’s revealing of poison punctures Anneypenny’s idyllic backdrop. Soon every friend and neighbour seems to harbour something suspicious. Douglas challenges his readers, or listeners, to answer the key questions before throwing out several scenarios and turning them upside-down in a tantalising path to the truth.