The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley 10 out of 10

 The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley

10 out of 10

 

 

When a mystery novel like The Poisoned Chocolates Case is excellent, it is not only on account of its brilliant crime plot – which is important and makes the satire included in the pages of this wondrous book ever more refined and portentous, when it takes on the modern books that disregard the notion of having a plot, sense and probably any organized structure – but also the incredible insight into the human mind, its psychology, the nature of men and women, their manner of choosing their murder weapon or strategy, how they react when they downgrade, sometimes degrade themselves in choosing an improper partner and not in the least the elevated, often humorous and exquisite language used in delivering the story.

 

Having read quite a few spectacular detective stories over the past months – ending a long period during which yours truly has rejected the genre as beneath his superior aims for higher sphere manuscripts – the under signed has found a staggering creativity in narratives where the detective is a…rabbi as in Friday the Rabbi Slept Late http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/07/friday-rabbi-slept-late-by-harry.html  or the hero is a historical figure that had been transformed by mythology into a villain, albeit he was closer to a saint, as in the majestic The Daughter of Time http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-daughter-of-time-by-josephine-fey.html which investigates the past and the alleged crimes of Richard III, who in fact had not been involved in any of the atrocities wrongfully assigned to him…

The originality of this mystery novel resides in the manner in which we reach the conclusion, in the way they take in former cases and look at how the murderer had been inspired by them – there are also quite a few literary references and if I remember well, it seems that Henry Fielding has written in Tom Jones about using ideas from other writers – and especially the fact that we have a few suspects – in their dissertations, the experts would refer to the notion of the close case, which is what most detective stories look like, and the opposing open case, the latter being one in which you have multiple, potentially an infinity of possible culprits – but also a good number of detectives looking into the case.

 

It is interesting to find that Anthony Berkeley includes criticism of…crime stories, with irony and possible self-deprecation – apart from the good point that in most of these books one has a limited number of possible killers, called a ‘close case’- in the regular mystery narrative, detectives find clues and pointers, but they are always interpreted in the ‘desired’ manner, indicated towards the solution of the problem – whereas in reality, the same clue can have more than one, often multiple interpretations – all indices that do not throw a light are ignored, including those details that would suggest another solution than the one given by the detective or inspector that towers over the story in the usual crime feature.

A wonderful tour de force is the one in which one of the personages in this novel, himself an author of detective stories, writing under the assumed, pompous name of Morton Harrogate Bradley, looks at the features that the suspect would have to have, from a knowledge of chemistry and interest in criminology to a dexterity and ability to work with the hands, in all twelve conditions, and then concludes that…only he could have been committing it, as the only one to check all twelve boxes…though this is just a theory and the purpose was to show that in the abstract we can demonstrate that the killer was the Archbishop of Canterbury, the President of America and indeed anyone else…

 

The premise is also different – and by the way, among the conditions there is the need to be creative, in order to think of such a crime – in that there are six members of a circle interested in criminology and since the police had been unable to solve the Chocolates Case, they take up the task of trying to see what happened…in short, a box of chocolates is delivered to the rather loathsome Sir Eustace Pennefather and since he dislikes the gift, he offers them to Graham Bendix, who in his turn takes them home, where he has a couple and his spouse takes seven, which means that the latter has more than enough to kill her.

The first to present a theory is a wealthy barrister, sir Charles Wildman, and he is sure that the wife of Pennefather was the murderer and he has some circumstantial evidence to convince the others that he is correct in his assumptions, for instance, the woman had claimed to have stayed in France, but eloped to England, albeit on further analysis, it proves that she has done this for some tax purposes and anyway, she is not the killer…the second supposition will have Sir Charles Widman himself in the dock, as the father of the girl that the disreputable Pennefather seemed to want to marry and only for her fortune…

 

That scenario is debunked, notwithstanding the fact that the presentation has been outstanding – indeed, all six lecturers and amateur detectives have proved wonderfully skilled and intuitive – just like the third expert, who is the aforementioned Bradley, the one who rests his case on the choice of poison, nitrobenzene, which for him demonstrates the knowledge that the killer must have of chemistry, coupled with interest in criminology, an obsession for order and symmetry, coldness, possession of a certain type of typewriter…in an ingenious twist though, the writer presents himself as the wanted man, but this is eventually refuted as well.

The president of this circle, Roger Sheringham, presents a novel scheme, in which there has been no mistake, as it had been assumed, and the right target has been eliminated – it had been presumed that the mysterious villain had wanted to poison Sir Eustace and by mistake, Joan Bendix died – and then he travels along the path he is sure leads to the culprits refuge, only to be refuted the next day by another writer – there are three in the circle – Alicia Dammers, who would send to be hanged no other than Pennefather himself, for she agrees with the president on the notion that the intended victim had died, but they disagree on the guilty party.

 

Finally, we arrive at the last man to plead and he is the most unassuming – therefore, the under signed is proud to say that he had guessed he would be the one to deliver the decisive blow – and also the one to solve the complex puzzle, after dismantling the propositions made by the others before him…who killed the woman, well, ask me and you will know, or better still, read the magnificent book…