The Silk Stocking Murders (1928)

My review:

A really good early Sheringham and a distinct improvement on its three predecessors.  Berkeley has worked out how to combine amateur detection, a straightforward yet mystifying plot and believable characters to make an extremely readable whole.  Roger Sheringham – one of the most agreeable straight amateurs because he is always enthusiastic and ready to give things a go, enjoying it (unlike poor Nigel Strangeways, who became more morbidly introspective as he aged) – investigates a series of stocking suspenders which, although passed off as suicide, he discovers are murder, for no woman would hang herself.  To prove his thesis, he works more closely with the police than in any other book except Top Storey Murder and with certain interested parties on the other hand – a two-pronged approach which illustrates Berkeley’s interest in different approaches to detection.  Of course, “imaginative psychological methods” are more successful than police routine.  The murderer is caught by a very effective (if rather callous and high-handed?) trap which vindicates French methods.  His identity is a distinct surprise, for he is a major character whom we do not consider because he figures so prominently in another role (c.f. The Layton Court Mystery, The Poisoned Chocolates Case, The Piccadilly Murder and Trial and Error) – a device which Christie would adapt and make her own throughout the early 1930s.  The method (which bears some similarities to that in Jumping Jenny) really is clever (and was unfortunately shown to work in the 1930s), relying on the lethal properties of such everyday items as a door and a chair – and makes the case a hard nut to crack.

Note that Agatha Christie’s ABC Murders (1935) was inspired by this book: ABC = Anthony Berkeley Cox?; silk stockings; camouflaged murder among many crimes; identity of murderer; suspicion falls on detective’s colleague; victims’ relations play active part in detection.

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