F
or #ReadIndies month, I had to pick up one of the many unread British Library Crime Classics I have on my shelf. Or, more precisely, piled high on top of a bookcase. 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.
It’s a great premise for a detective novel. Roger Sheringham, who apparently appears in other Berkeley novels, has assembled a group of people to help him solve a murder. 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.
The police have given up the case as lost. Can the Crime Club help? The dead person is Joan Bendix – poisoned, as the title suggests, by chocolates. The chocolates in question were given to her by her husband, but only because he bumped into Sir Eustace. He received them in the post, purporting to be from the chocolatiers, looking for a sponser. He rejects them – handing them to Graham Bendix. Later that night, both Bendixes – Bendices? – eat some chocolates, but Joan eats more. By the end of the evening, she is dead.
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. And, of course, the person they’re accusing of murder.
A 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. 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. Berkeley is clearly enjoying teasing the genre and exposing the tricks that detective novelists play. How often they use false syllogisms to make the denouement convincing. All of that.
Which does mean that the novel’s final solution is arguably no more convincing than any of the others – and the two extras at the end, contributing in the 70s by Christianna Brand and for this edition by Martin Edwards, are certainly not the most convincing – but it’s one of those rare detective novels where the satisfaction doesn’t come from the solution. It comes from seeing behind the curtain, at the construction of detection.
It’s very clever and enjoyable, isn’t it? I called it post-modern, but perhaps that’s pushing it too far. However, I had an alarming experience with another of his Sheringham stories, so I felt less inclined to read him after that!
Oo I am intrigued by ‘alarming’, yikes!
Ah, well if you have a look at my review, you will see that the author had a fondness for spanking, which came out in the other book I read and about which I was *not* happy…
This sounds intriguing. One to savour with a box of chocolates to hand?
Unless you’re worried about poison :D
I’m a bit in the minority with this one. I thought the writing was superb but I got a bit bogged down in all the various denouement alternatives. I didn’t dislike it but would like to read something else by Berkeley to get a better idea of his writing.
Yes, I imagine, when he isn’t doing this trick, it must be quite different – but I loved the humour in his writing, which would probably be there again.
I love your line about ‘seeing behind the curtain’ as a way of describing the book – a playful expose of the various avenues of investigation! One for me to look out for, I think…
And amazing it came so early in the Golden Age!
I will definitely check this one out, thanks!
Hope you enjoy!
I had to check this review out because… I am The Chocolate Lady… but to be honest, I’m not sure if this is one for me… Maybe.
What makes you think that, out of interest?
I read the short story that eventually became this novel just last week (in the Capital Crimes collection) and I thought the identity of the murderer was satisfactory. I’ll read this at some point just to see who the alternate villain is. Martin Edwards didn’t reveal who it was in the short story intro.
This sounds so fun. I need to add it to my list.