Berkeley's Best
 

I've not read all of his stuff, but he is one of my favorites.

Of those I've read, my favorites are:

1. THE POISONED CHOCOLATES CASE
2. TOP STOREY MURDER
3. TRIAL AND ERROR
4. JUMPING JENNY

My order of preference among these four changes daily.

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

Berkeley's great. If you've only read those four, you're in for a treat. After all, you still have The Silk Stocking Murders, The Piccadilly Murder, The Second Shot, Not to Be Taken and Death in the House to read, all of which are very good (Piccadilly and NTBT are brilliant).

In order:
Trial and Error (superb courtroom farce, with brilliant twist at end; rightly dedicated to Wodehouse)
The Poisoned Chocolates Case (brilliant satire on detective writers and methods, including Christie and Sayers)
The Piccadilly Murder (excellent period piece with surprising murderer)
Jumping Jenny (great situation, good tension and BRILLIANT last line)
Not to Be Taken (village poisoning based on Maybrick case; excellent characterisation)
Death in the House (rather sensational but good fun)
The Silk Stocking Murders (serial killer story; sophisticated & witty; surprising murderer)
The Second Shot (country house mystery similar to an earlier Christie - well done)
Panic Party (anticipates both Ten Little Nouns and Lord of the Flies; great build-up, but disappointing end)
Top Storey Murder (fun but disappointing solution)
The Layton Court Mystery (good solution but rather flat and generic, like late Innes)
Murder in the Basement (boring police procedural, lacking in any characterisation or suspense)
The Wychford Poisoning Case (awful - misogynistic and anti-climactic)

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

And let us not forget the Francis Iles books...

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

I have also read Silk Stockings and Panic Party, but I didn't include them because they don't approach being favorites of mine (Panic Party is just not my kind of story, and the fact that it looks like it will be makes it all the more frustrating). As for Top Storey Murder, I find the solution anything but disappointing.

The Iles books are quite well done, but just not my cup of (poisoned) tea, either.

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

I thought Malice Aforethought was excellent - lots of satire on the bourgeoisie, a sympathetic villain, and a good twist at the end. I couldn't read Before the Fact, which was just tediously misogynistic and read like Evelyn Waugh at his worst (A Handful of Dust).

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

My personal favorites by Berkeley are:

1. Trial and Error
2. The Poisoned Chocolates Case
3. The Piccadilly Murder
4. The Layton Court Mystery
5. Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery

But if I’m rating the books I consider best (rather than personal favorites), my top three would be The Poisoned Chocolates Case, Trial and Error, and Top Storey Murder. I’ve been meaning for some time to rate Berkeley’s books with comments the way I did Carr’s some time ago; maybe I’ll finally do it soon.

I agree with almost all of Stoke Moran’s comments (though my ranking of personal favorites is different), except that I didn’t find the murderer in Silk Stocking Murders at all surprising. One of the reasons I like Berkeley is that he has surprised me several times, and I’m not often surprised—not because I’m an infallible puzzle solver, but simply because I tend to suspect each character as soon as he or she enters the story, including the narrator, detective, sweet little old lady, comic relief characters, etc. Even if my #1 suspect turns out to be innocent, the culprit is usually someone I’ve considered a possibility. But in THE LAYTON COURT MYSTERY and THE POISONED CHOCOLATES CASE, I never even considered the murderer as a suspect until nearly the end of the book. In ROGER SHERINGHAM AND THE VANE MYSTERY, THE PICCADILLY MURDER, and TOP STOREY MURDER, I considered the correct murderer early on, then switched to other suspects, and was caught off guard each time. (PICCADILLY MURDER has an especially good red herring, a person who appears to be above suspicion for several reasons and who never comes under suspicion, but has a not-too-obvious motive.)

Arthur

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

Apologies in advance, but I hated hated HATED Silk Stocking Murders. The clincher was Sheringham's ridiculous ploy at the climax.

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

I didn't hate Silk Stocking Murders, but it certainly isn't top-notch Berkeley.

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

Jumping Jenny is enormous fun and I found myself laughing out loud in places, but the problem I had with it was that I never felt any real threat from the police investigation. This would have added an extra dimension I feel. However, I love the way that we, the reader, are for once in possession of more of the facts than the detective, though - crucially - still not the full picture. Clever and playful.

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

Mr Priestleys Problem is great fun, and as I mentioned somewhere, the handcuff sequence in Hitchcocks 39 steps is lifted from it virtually piecemeal.
Still never been able to discover whther Berekely gets any credit for this.

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

I just finished reading The Piccadilly Murder and am quite disappointed that. . .

I have the same complaint about Christie's Three Act Tragedy. However, Christie's Death in the Clouds gets away with this, in my book, because of how brilliantly Christie clues the deception.

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

Patrick, I agree about your complaint of Piccadilly Murder, though I think I found more merit in it than you did... And I also find an important distinction between the gimmicks of the two Chesterton works:
Moreover, though I agree that Three Act Tragedy ain't all that wonderful, the motive for the earlier murder-- while admittedly not all that believable-- is an interestning idea.

I'll have to read Death in the Clouds again-- I don't remember it as particularly fascinating in its clue-ing. I do remember the missing-item-on-the-packing-list clue (remniscent of Queen's "The African Traveler"), but not much more. I'll take another look.

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

Think you're being a bit over strict with the rerm rip-off, Patrick, if you're going to apply it to any book in which I think you have to have to have more in common with the original than just a broad premise.
An example of which, I've often wondered where the following device, used in both Calamity Town and They do it with mirrors - first occurrred. This I do call a rip off - but by who of who? I suspect it was first used by Christie, but in a short story. Anyone know for certain?

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

But Rod, it is also a matter of how strict you're being with your example. For instance, are you just speaking of cases in which: or the more general class of stories in which If we are referring to the latter, broader category, then it goes back at least as far as and probably much further-- I wouldn't be surprised if it had not been employed by Chesterton earlier, or even Conan Doyle. As it is, I know that the ploy was used at least once (and in some cases, several times) in their careers by Christie, Marsh, Queen, Brand, Berkeley and probably several others.

Re: Berkeley's Best
 

You make my point more clearly than I did Archer.
which is that the basic idea doesn't really qualify as a rip off, whereas a specific method in my mind really should.I'm particularly interested in this one because if I'm right it's case of Christie ripping off Queen ripping off Christie. (And of course you're quite right. its The Mirror Cracked)

Incidentally has anyone read Patrick Quentins Puzzle for Wantons, which delightfully stands the essential idea on its head.