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.
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