The Poisoned Chocolates Case

An interesting and well-written experimental sort of detective novel.
Roger Sheringham has established a small club for people interested in criminology. His latest idea is for them all to investigate a recent unsolved crime ("The Poisoned Chocolates Case") during the course of one week. On successive evenings, each member will then take the floor to share his or her conclusions in hopes that somewhere along the line they will solve it and hand it back over to the police.

What follows is a fairly amusing indictment of traditional detective stories. In many such books, the reader is primed to accept that the detective's deduction on any given fact is the only possible conclusion. But in this book there are as many deductions as there are show more people, and all of them plausible in their own way.
The only flaw in this structure is that when you finally reach the "real" solution, you are still left with a nagging feeling that it's only one of many possibilities...
Which maybe was the point.
And indeed a couple of other authors wrote additional solutions in later years, which are evidently part of the newest edition of the book. It might be worth tracking down just to check out those other solutions.


A few excerpts to show off the occasional flashes of humor:

Roger sped to the rescue. The combatants reminded him of a bull and a gadfly, and that is a contest which it is often good fun to watch. But the Crimes Circle had been founded to investigate the crimes of others, not to provide opportunities for new ones.


The motion was carried unanimously. Mrs. Fielder-Flemming would have liked to vote against it, but she had never yet belonged to any committee where all motions were not carried unanimously and habit was too strong for her.


"A friend of Mrs. Bendix's then. At least," amended Mrs. Fielder-Flemming in some confusion, remembering that real friends seldom murder each other, "she thought of him as a friend. Dear me, this is getting very interesting, Alicia." show less

WARNING: This review contains spoilers.

****

A fun and interesting look at a case being solved by armchair detectives. The idea of a "Crime Circle Club" seemed a bit precious to me -- each member taking turns to present their solution to a crime that has stumped Scotland Yard? Puh-leez! was my original thought. But this concept was ably executed and proved to be quite an entertaining ride. Each member had a distinctive personality and focused on very different aspects of the case. It was interesting to see how close each member got to the truth while the last member to speak laid out the correct solution.

I will say that I predicted the killer while the last member was presenting his evidence, and it was very frustrating to see the other show more members fail to figure it out. And then they let the killer get away!? Or perhaps they did phone Scotland Yard. It was somewhat open-ended.

And thanks to this book, I learned that nitrobenzene is a terribly dangerous substance, and I cannot imagine why anyone would ever use it as a flavouring, knowing how poisonous it can be. The book has a rather gruesome account of the victim's demise, and that plus some poking around the Internet informed me as to the nature of this chemical. So don't swallow nitrobenzene at home, kids.

To sum up, if you like older mysteries with some entertaining characters and a truly devilish murder, hunt up this one. show less

The Poisoned Chocolates Case is an ingenious, entertaining, and humorous mystery of the old school type, set in London in the 1920s. Six armchair detectives of the Crimes Circle club attempt to solve a perplexing case of murder by (poisoned) chocolate. It is not clear who had been intended as the victim, who the perpetrator could be, and what of many possible motives was the actual one. At each meeting of the club, one of the six members presents their conclusions as to the murderer and the intended victim. Each in turn is able to present a thoroughly plausible explanation, one that seems certain to be true; but each explanation falls away in turn as new facts emerge. The final outcome is entirely unexpected, and leaves the club members show more stunned. The characters are distinctly drawn, and an element of facetious humor suffuses the work. This is a fine old work for mystery lovers.

I found this work in a 1930s era Mammoth Golden Book of Best Detective Stories. However, the book has been reprinted several times over the years, and used copies are readily available at low cost. show less

This book basically described is 6 people hear about an unsolved mystery and after time trying to solve it give their monologue explanation of what they think happened. Obviously it's not a plot focused book and the characterisations given to each of the characters are limited (although work pretty well to differentiate everyone) but the mechanical elements of the mystery are solid and well written. It's not something you can "solve" at... well, any point really. Because really it's more complicated than I've just suggested.

When there are 6 different versions of events, it's a given that most are incorrect, although in varying degrees. So each story follows on from the last by saying "well, actually..." Partially this is through show more bringing new facts to light, partially it's through disproving their deductions where they haven't thought through everything. But each story is also convincingly argued, each based on and argued from a different starting point based on different ideas. And each one contains ideas about what actually happened that are near impossible to disprove because they're surrounding events known only to the murderer. Even when other people give what appear to be stronger explanations they often admit they can't exactly *disprove* the last story - even the most implausible of the stories is mostly dismissed because they can't really believe it even though they don't have good reason.

This is of course very different to the typical structure of a detective/mystery story - the detective gathers up the clues which inevitably lead him to one specific conclusion which is completely correct in story. Yet here each clue leads each detective down totally diverging paths pointing to totally different people. The middle story is told by a (fictional) detective story writer who breaks down how in fictional stories misdirection and the whim of the author create the illusion of singular solutions to clear puzzles and how easily clues can be found to point to near anyone. He also uses dodgy statistics to "prove" if you found someone who fitted all of a certain list of qualities they *had* to be the murderer because it'd be so unlikely that they'd exist (It's pretty much the prosecutor's fallacy, a real life issue in court). Each story pokes holes in the conventions and accepted disbelief around mystery stories.

But the target extends beyond mystery stories and to the criminal justice system itself and the whole method of finding criminals. Multiple times in the story the characters are so convinced that they're inclined to take their damning evidence to the police (including the barrister character). Yet they wisely stay their hand and discover their inclinations were wrong. The evidence which so convinced them as well as the reader would likely convince a jury too. How easy it is to twist some clues to create a whole story surrounding one particular suspect is emphasised. I'm not claiming that the book is a deep criticism of this but the parallels with stories of people falsely accused of crimes in real life are obvious and the fictional setting is a clever way of highlighting our own biases in thought.

I also hesitate to say this but it feels like it has something of a "postmodern" sensibility. The whole effect of the plot is to make us doubt what "evidence" really means, both in the context of the plot as well as in mystery stories in general and even in real life. When we get to the final story it's not obvious that we've got the "real" answer. It's easy to imagine a further story disproving that one, and onwards to infinity. We're left with the thought that (minor ending spoilers, not plot just concept) although we know who did it, we don't know how to prove it. Yet what proof could there possibly be that would satisfy us after being led to doubt ourselves so often over the course of the book? Have the characters been chastened by their experience of how their detective work and convictions can be led astray? It seems not. "Proof" is a funny thing. When there are an infinite variety of different stories, of possible interpretations, of different perspectives, how can we ever feel confident we've got the "right" answer, even within a work of fiction? show less

Sir Eustace Pennefather, a thorough Lothario, receives a sample of a new type of chocolates through the mail at his London club. Sir Eustace hands off the box to a fellow club member, Graham Bendix, to take to his wife. The chocolates turn out to have been injected with nitrobenzene, and Mrs. Bendix dies, while Mr. Bendix remains seriously ill in the hospital. Scotland Yard is baffled: When were the chocolates tampered with? Who is the murderer? And who was the intended victim?

Roger Sheringham has never suffered from a lack of self-esteem. The annoyingly self-confident and loquacious writer, journalist and amateur sleuth has established a very exclusive club for only the best mystery aficionados, the Crimes Circle -- and that has made show more him even more conceited. Roger decides that he -- or his fellow clever Crimes Circle members -- can do what the police cannot and solve a case that's jam-packed with possible suspects. Over six nights, a different club member posits a possible solution. Who has it right? You won't know the very shocking solution to the crime until the very last few pages!

In what's widely regarded as his finest novel, Anthony Berkeley presages a future collaboration detective work in real life, Ask a Policeman: A Mystery by the Detection Club, in this 1929 novel. Berkeley, founder of the London-based Detection Club, a group of mystery writers pledged to play fair with clues with their readers, sets up his detective Roger Sheringham as the founder of the similar Crimes Circle. In Ask a Policeman (1934), four real-life excellent mystery writers -- all members of the Detection Club -- take turns trying to solve a crime devised by two other members of the Detection Club; each comes up with a different resolution for the crime -- echoing the premise of The Poisoned Chocolates Case. I had read Ask a Policeman first, and it was thrilling to see the germ of that actual experiment in this novel. show less

Roger Sheringham is the president of an amateur criminology club. The club has six members, almost all of whom are famous in their respective fields of law, drama, and literature. Since Roger and the other club members are fascinated by crime, they are delighted when a unique opportunity comes their way: a Scotland Yard inspector invites them to try their hands at solving a prominent murder case that has stumped the police. The club members, confident in their abilities, decide that that they will each formulate a possible solution to the mystery and present it to the club as a whole. If all the members agree on the murderer's identity, they will inform Scotland Yard of their conclusion. As the members take turns presenting their show more solutions, however, it becomes clear that the case is much more complicated than they originally thought.

This is one of the most unique and interesting mysteries I have ever read. The format is unlike most other mysteries because it doesn't focus on practical detective work like discovering clues and interviewing suspects. Rather, almost all the evidence is presented to the club members at the beginning of the novel, and the book spends most of its time exploring the characters' different theories of the crime. I really liked how the book pokes fun at various detective-novel conventions, particularly the idea that facts necessarily lead to one and only one conclusion. Here, all the club members have access to the same facts, but they all argue convincingly for different solutions. I didn't guess the ultimate answer to the puzzle (although I did have the same theory as one of the club members), but the answer really isn't the point. Instead, this book is all about the philosophy of the detective novel, and as such, I would definitely recommend it to mystery fans! show less

The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley was originally published in 1929 and this gem of a mystery has been puzzling mystery buffs every since. My particular edition was a 2016 British Library reprint and includes “A New Denouement” by author Christina Brand which she wrote in 1979 and an Epilogue with yet another explanation added by author Martin Edwards.

This story that causes so much speculation is set in London during the 1920’s as a group of armchair detectives, who are members of a “Crime Circle”, present their theories on a recent murder case that Scotland Yard has been unable to solve. Each of the six members, using very different methods of detection, arrives at an entirely different solution. Each solution show more appears to be entirely plausible, but each is debunked by the other members of the Crime Circle. That is until the final solution is presented.

While the author was obviously poking fun at the day’s popular detective fiction, showing how easily the clues and motives can be weaved together to point at one person or another, this tongue-in-cheek, subtle story is a delight to read and keeps the reader guessing right up to the last page. Personally I would have preferred not reading the later additions as I loved how this book ended. The Poisoned Chocolates Case is a stylish, unique and truly enjoyable classic mystery. show less