Born this day in 1893, Anthony Berkeley Cox wrote under several pen-names, including Francis Iles, Anthony Berkeley and A. Monmouth Platts.
The Piccadilly
Murder - Anthony Berkeley
Published in 1929, this is a lighthearted mystery that we can still enjoy today. The plotting is almost too clever since the average reader of mysteries will be able to figure whodunit about two-thirds into the novel.
Still worth reading because the central character, mild-mannered and ever so nice Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick, is astute and after some hiccoughs of the brain ensures that an innocent man does not hang. Chitterwick is bullied so severely by his autocratic aunt that we can’t help but pull for him. The conversations and nonverbal interactions between nephew and aunt made me laugh.
Berkeley has a dab hand at the witty aside too: “To us who frequent it the Piccadilly Palace is what Monte Carlo is to Europe’s new rich, our pride, our Mecca, our rendezvous.”
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