Here’s the deal: Sir Eustace Pennefather gets a free sample box of luxury chocolates in the mail. He’s not a sweets guy, so he brings them to his gentleman’s club. There, Graham Bendix thinks his wife would love them. He takes the box home. Joan Bendix eats a single chocolate and dies in agony from a rare poison. The police investigation goes nowhere fast. The evidence is a mess—the chocolates were handled by half the club, the mailing wrapper is gone, and there’s no clear motive.

The Story

Enter the Crimes Circle, a club for people obsessed with unsolved crimes. Led by the writer Roger Sheringham, its six members decide to solve the case as an intellectual exercise. They have all the police facts. One by one, over six meetings, each amateur detective stands up and presents their solution. And I mean a full solution—complete with murderer, motive, and method. Each theory is smart, plausible, and pins the crime on a different person. Just as you settle in with one answer, the next speaker tears it apart and builds a new, equally convincing case. It’s a parade of brilliant deductions and shocking reveals that doesn’t let up.

Why You Should Read It

This book is pure, joyful brain candy. Berkeley isn’t just telling a mystery; he’s showing off, in the best way. He demonstrates how the same set of facts can be twisted to mean six different things. The characters are a hoot—from the pompous Sheringham to the fiercely logical woman member, Miss Chitterwick—and their rivalry is half the fun. You get the thrill of solving a puzzle six times over. It plays with every convention of the detective novel and feels incredibly fresh, even though it was written in 1929. It’s witty, fast-paced, and the ultimate ‘just one more chapter’ book.

Final Verdict

This is the perfect book for mystery lovers who think they’ve seen it all. If you enjoy Agatha Christie’s puzzles but wish you could see multiple endings, you’ll adore this. It’s also great for anyone who likes stories about clever people being clever. Fair warning: it might ruin other, more straightforward mysteries for you. Once you’ve seen Berkeley juggle six solutions, a simple whodunit might feel a little tame. A stone-cold classic of the genre that’s as entertaining today as it was a century ago.