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Mr Priestley’s Problem
The much-revered crime writer Anthony Berkeley’s murder mystery back in print for the first time in over 70 years‘The plot is ingenious’ The Observer‘An excellent mystery story’ The Spectator‘A master of the final twist’ Agatha Christie‘The feelings and actions of a respectable member of society who found that he had committed a murder… hilariously funny’ New York TimesMr Matthew Priestley, a rather staid thirty-something Englishman, is on the way home from a lavish dinner at a fancy London restaurant. He hears a female voice over his shoulder, chastising him for being late for their appointment. He turns and greets the gaze of Laura Howard, a charming and beautiful woman of London’s high-society. He apologizes and takes her to a bar in Piccadilly Circus for coffee. Apparently she has mistaken him for someone else, but who cares? This is the new Mr Priestley, daring and impulsive. His enthusiasm almost evaporates when he learns Laura thinks he’s a burglar for hire named Mullins who has agreed to steal some indiscreet letters that an old flame is threatening to blackmail her with. Thus, a case of mistaken identity leads to a murder and begins a train of events that baffles Scotland Yard’s Superintendent Peters and Mr Priestley’s friends. Or does it?About the AuthorAnthony Berkeley Cox was a best-selling and much-admired English crime writer who wrote under a number of pen-names, including Anthony Berkeley, Francis Iles and A. Monmouth Platts. Born in Watford in 1893 he studied at Oxford University and worked as a journalist after serving as an officer in the First World War. He created Roger Sheringham for his first crime novel, The Layton Court Mystery, published in 1925. Amateur detective Sheringham, was loquacious, conceited, occasionally downright offensive, and something of a man-about-town with contacts in all the right places. However, infallibility was not one of Sheringham’s virtues. His most famous outing was in The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929) which sold over one million copies, received rapturous reviews and is regarded today as a classic of the Golden Age of Crime. In the same year it was published, Cox created ‘The Detection Club’, the illustrious dining club of detective story writers. He wrote 19 crime novels between 1925 and 1939 before returning to journalism, writing for The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times and between 1950-70 The Guardian. He died in 1971. Praise for Anthony Berkeley‘There never was another writer of detective stories who managed to make his red herrings smell so good’ The Observer‘Anthony Berkeley is the supreme master not of the ‘twist’ but of the ‘double-twist’. He has long been in the very front rank of detective writers’ The Sunday Times‘Few detective story writers have been as influential as Anthony Berkeley’Washington Post‘The most brilliant of Agatha Christie’s contemporaries’Publishers Weekly‘Anthony Berkeley specialises in honest clues and a natural atmosphere’New York Herald-Tribune‘Crime fiction’s Jekyll and Hyde – suave and scintillating one minute, sardonic and sinister the n
- GenresMystery
281 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1927
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About the author
Anthony Berkeley
120 books164 followersAnthony Berkeley Cox was an English crime writer. He wrote under several pen-names, including Francis Iles, Anthony Berkeley Cox, and A. Monmouth Platts. One of the founders of The Detection Club
Cox was born in Watford and was educated at Sherborne School and University College London.
He served in the Army in World War I and thereafter worked as a journalist, contributing a series of humourous sketches to the magazine 'Punch'. These were later published collectively (1925) under the Anthony Berkeley pseudonym as 'Jugged Journalism' and the book was followed by a series of minor comic novels such as 'Brenda Entertains' (1925), 'The Family Witch' (1925) and 'The Professor on Paws' (1926).
It was also in 1925 when he published, anonymously to begin with, his first detective novel, 'The Layton Court Mystery', which was apparently written for the amusement of himself and his father, who was a big fan of the mystery genre. Later editions of the book had the author as Anthony Berkeley.
He discovered that the financial rewards were far better for detective fiction so he concentrated his efforts on that genre for the following 14 years, using mainly the Anthony Berkeley pseudonym but also writing four novels and three collections of short stories as Francis Isles and one novel as A Monmouth Platts.
In 1928 he founded the famous Detection Club in London and became its first honorary secretary.
In the mid-1930s he began reviewing novels, both mystery and non-mystery, for 'The Daily Telegraph' under the Francis Isles pseudonym, which he had first used for 'Malice Aforethought' in 1931.
In 1939 he gave up writing detective fiction for no apparent reason although it has been suggested that he came into a large inheritance at the time or that his alleged remark, 'When I find something that pays better than detective stories I shall write that' had some relevance. However, he produced nothing significant after he finished writing with 'Death in the House' (Berkeley) and 'As for the Woman' (Isles) in 1939.
He did, however, continue to review books for such as 'John O'London's Weekly', 'The Sunday Times', 'The Daily Telegraph' and, from the mid-1950s to 1970, 'The Guardian'. In addition he produced 'O England!', a study of social conditions and politics in 1934.
He and his wife lived in an old house in St John's Wood, London, and he had an office in The Strand where he was listed as one of the two directors of A B Cox Ltd, a company whose business was unspecified!
Alfred Hitchcock adapted the Francis Isles' title 'Before the Fact' for his film 'Suspicion' in 1941 and in the same year Cox supplied a script for another film 'Flight from Destiny', which was produced by Warner Brothers.
His most enduring character is Roger Sheringham who featured in 10 Anthony Berkeley novels and two posthumous collections of short stories.
He died on 9 March 1971.
Gerry Wolstenholme
January 2012 (less)
Cox was born in Watford and was educated at Sherborne School and University College London.
He served in the Army in World War I and thereafter worked as a journalist, contributing a series of humourous sketches to the magazine 'Punch'. These were later published collectively (1925) under the Anthony Berkeley pseudonym as 'Jugged Journalism' and the book was followed by a series of minor comic novels such as 'Brenda Entertains' (1925), 'The Family Witch' (1925) and 'The Professor on Paws' (1926).
It was also in 1925 when he published, anonymously to begin with, his first detective novel, 'The Layton Court Mystery', which was apparently written for the amusement of himself and his father, who was a big fan of the mystery genre. Later editions of the book had the author as Anthony Berkeley.
He discovered that the financial rewards were far better for detective fiction so he concentrated his efforts on that genre for the following 14 years, using mainly the Anthony Berkeley pseudonym but also writing four novels and three collections of short stories as Francis Isles and one novel as A Monmouth Platts.
In 1928 he founded the famous Detection Club in London and became its first honorary secretary.
In the mid-1930s he began reviewing novels, both mystery and non-mystery, for 'The Daily Telegraph' under the Francis Isles pseudonym, which he had first used for 'Malice Aforethought' in 1931.
In 1939 he gave up writing detective fiction for no apparent reason although it has been suggested that he came into a large inheritance at the time or that his alleged remark, 'When I find something that pays better than detective stories I shall write that' had some relevance. However, he produced nothing significant after he finished writing with 'Death in the House' (Berkeley) and 'As for the Woman' (Isles) in 1939.
He did, however, continue to review books for such as 'John O'London's Weekly', 'The Sunday Times', 'The Daily Telegraph' and, from the mid-1950s to 1970, 'The Guardian'. In addition he produced 'O England!', a study of social conditions and politics in 1934.
He and his wife lived in an old house in St John's Wood, London, and he had an office in The Strand where he was listed as one of the two directors of A B Cox Ltd, a company whose business was unspecified!
Alfred Hitchcock adapted the Francis Isles' title 'Before the Fact' for his film 'Suspicion' in 1941 and in the same year Cox supplied a script for another film 'Flight from Destiny', which was produced by Warner Brothers.
His most enduring character is Roger Sheringham who featured in 10 Anthony Berkeley novels and two posthumous collections of short stories.
He died on 9 March 1971.
Gerry Wolstenholme
January 2012 (less)
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 5, 2019
For my full review click on the link below:
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https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
April 9, 2024
Gift card | Entirely ridiculous, but--if you're in the right mood for it--in an enjoyable way | It's farce, right through, and should not properly be shelved as a mystery at all. Think Arsenic and Old Lace, with Cary Grant's Mortimer making ludicrous faces and falling over furniture as he tries to cover for everyone and distract the right people without losing the woman he loves.
February 2, 2025
Crazy :)
Anthony Berkeley is a new find for me. I'd read the short story that he'd written for "Six for the Yard", a collection of well know golden age authors writing their versions of The Perfect Murder." Mr. Berkeley's story was very funny, in spite of the fact that it IS a murder story.
This book came up in my search, Mr. Priestley's Problem, and I can honestly say it is indeed An Extravaganza in Crime! Part P. G. Wodehouse, part Noel Coward, part Margery Allingham, this is an incredible read, lol. It's not a spoiler to tell that there isn't a murder after all. It's an elaborate plan among friends to see for themselves what happens during and after a murder. They pick out a friend of one of the group that needs 'waking up', in their words, and then proceed to wake him up! Just a wild ride through the whole book. Funny, interesting, and altogether a very good read. I don't know much about Mr. Berkeley's other mystery books, but I will soon :)
Anthony Berkeley is a new find for me. I'd read the short story that he'd written for "Six for the Yard", a collection of well know golden age authors writing their versions of The Perfect Murder." Mr. Berkeley's story was very funny, in spite of the fact that it IS a murder story.
This book came up in my search, Mr. Priestley's Problem, and I can honestly say it is indeed An Extravaganza in Crime! Part P. G. Wodehouse, part Noel Coward, part Margery Allingham, this is an incredible read, lol. It's not a spoiler to tell that there isn't a murder after all. It's an elaborate plan among friends to see for themselves what happens during and after a murder. They pick out a friend of one of the group that needs 'waking up', in their words, and then proceed to wake him up! Just a wild ride through the whole book. Funny, interesting, and altogether a very good read. I don't know much about Mr. Berkeley's other mystery books, but I will soon :)
November 20, 2020
A delightfully ludicrous book. Mr Priestley's problem is that two amateur criminologists have set him up to think that he's accidentally committed a murder, just to see how he will respond. The problem is compounded when an actual police officer stumbles upon the supposed murder scene and... well, you'll have to read it to find out what happens next. This is not a typical mystery at all, but Berkeley obviously had a lot of fun writing it, and I had a lot of fun reading it.
July 28, 2024
Yes, yes, yes
A million times yes. Read this book for a most wittily farcical, zany and Oscar Wilde-ish, delightfully-written and perfectly-satisfying tale.
A million times yes. Read this book for a most wittily farcical, zany and Oscar Wilde-ish, delightfully-written and perfectly-satisfying tale.
September 17, 2024
Awesome start to finish. Expected a routine mystery and instead got a rollicking comedy that would make Oscar Wilde proud.
January 16, 2025
Drags on and on. More here: https://ahotcupofpleasureagain.wordpr...
Want to read
October 3, 2018Synopsis: what would the average man do if he killed someone accidentally and there was no evidence against him?
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews