Trent's Last Case (1913)

My review:

One of the earliest examples of the ‘true’ detective novel, which, although written in 1912, feels as modern as any of its successors, the works of Chrisite, Sayers and Berkeley.  The detection is handled with a lightness and a firmness of touch that would not be seen again until the masterworks of Sayers; indeed, Philip Trent, the amateur sleuth (artist and journalist) sent down by his paper to investigate the murder of the brutal financier Sigsbee Manderson, is clearly the inspiration for Wimsey, with his facetiousness that never descends into fatuousness (except in the euphoria of engagement) and keen intelligence.  The plot structure obviously anticipates Berkeley’s Poisoned Chocolates Case: unlike the tedious multiple solutions of Ellery Queen, which demonstrate what the author is deluded enough to view as ingenuity, the multiple solutions all contribute to the truth, taking the detective further but never quite far enough.  This slow grasping after the truth, always tantalisingly near yet out of reach, sets up the book’s moral: even when one knows four-fifths of the truth, one can never be certain (as sound a reason as any for abolishing the death penalty, something which only lingers in the barbaric corners of the world).

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