The Wychford Poisoning Case

Anthony Berkeley author Tony Medawar editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers

Published:4th Feb '21

Should be back in stock very soon

The Wychford Poisoning Case cover

A classic British crime novel from the Golden Age – perhaps the first ever psychological crime novel – by the founder of the Detection Club, marking 50 years since the death of the author.

Mrs Bentley has been arrested for murder. The evidence is overwhelming: arsenic she extracted from fly papers was in her husband’s medicine, his food and his lemonade, and her crimes are being plastered across the newspapers. Even her lawyers believe she is guilty. But Roger Sheringham, the brilliant but outspoken young novelist, is convinced that there is ‘too much evidence’ against Mrs Bentley and sets out to prove her innocence.

Credited as the book that first introduced psychology to the detective novel, The Wychford Poisoning Case was based on a notorious real-life murder inquiry. Written by Anthony Berkeley, a founder of the celebrated Detection Club who also found fame under the pen-name ‘Francis Iles’, the story saw the return of Roger Sheringham, the Golden Age’s breeziest – and booziest – detective.

‘Detection and crime at its wittiest – all Berkeley’s stories are amusing, intriguing and he is a master of the final twist.’
Agatha Christie

‘Anthony Berkeley is the supreme master not of the “twist” but of the “double-twist”.’ Milward Kennedy in the Sunday Times

ISBN: 9780008333881

Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 15mm

Weight: 170g

240 pages