Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery(1927)

Anthony BerkeleyMiguel Temprano García

‘Ingenious’ Times Literary SupplementThe second of ten ‘Roger Sheringham’ detective novelsThis 2023 Spitfire Publishers edition includes a complete bibliography of Anthony Berkeley’s crime novels
When Mrs Elsie Vane is found dead at the bottom of the cliffs at Ludmouth Bay on the Hampshire coast, the verdict is of accidental death. However, when the Daily Courier learns that Inspector Moresby of Scotland Yard has been making discreet enquiries into Mrs Vane’s affairs, the newspaper’s editor sends down gentleman sleuth Roger Sheringham to find out why. Roger’s investigations uncover murky truths about Mrs Vane’s life and a second, grisly murder…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anthony 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

‘All his stories are amusing, intriguing, and he is a master of the final twist, the surprise denouement’ Agatha Christie

‘There never was another writer of detective stories who managed to make his red herrings smell so good’ The Observer

‘The most brilliant of Agatha Christie’s contemporaries’ Publishers Weekly