ROGER SHERINGHAM
AND THE CRIME CIRCLE:
The Detective
Fiction of Anthony Berkeley
“We congratulate Mr. Berkeley
on one of the
cleverest and most provoking detective stories that we have read for a
very
long time.”
– Times Literary Supplement, 29th June 1933
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“…yet another detective story that only the
author of Jumping Jenny could have written. There never was another writer of detective
stories who managed to make his red herrings smell so good.”
–
William Blunt, Observer, 2nd April 1939
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It is good to see that the works of Anthony
Berkeley have been rediscovered in the last few years.
We have had Malcolm Turnbull’s excellent study
of the author, Elusion Aforethought;
the complete reprinting of the Berkeley
novels by the House of Stratus (with the exception of The
Wychford Poisoning Case – let us be
thankful for small mercies!); and, earlier this year, Tony Medawar’s
excellent Avenging Chance (Crippen & Landru),
collecting
Berkeley’s scattered short stories. Berkeley
was one of the finest writers of detective novels: his plots are always
ingeniously
plotted and solved (although not always by his novelist detective Roger
Sheringham, easily the most likeable and enthusiastic amateur of them
all), with
twists in the final chapter which Christie would envy, and his
characters, depicted
with the sort of malicious irony that would be so common in the 1970s,
are given
believable motives and psychological complexity – no wonder, then, that
Berkeley’s three novels written as Francis Iles should be cited as the
first and
most influential psychological novels.
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These pages copyright Nicholas Lester Fuller,
2000--2010. Created 3rd December 2004.
