Death in the House (1939)

My review:

Berkeley’s last book; published, like Sayers’s, several decades before his death.  In both cases, there seems no reason why they should have stopped writing, for their last books (this and Busman’s Honeymoon) are excellent examples of the detective story, with well-drawn characters, arresting incidents, intelligent detection and a particularly ingenious murder method.  Although House could easily have degenerated into melodrama, with its sinister Brown Hand bumping off half the members of the House of Commons with curare-dipped thorns, Berkeley maintains order in the House.  I fell neatly into the trap Berkeley laid for those who worked out an ingenious method, and failed to spot the agents of the Brown Hand.

To the Bibliography.

To the Berkeley Page.

To the Grandest Game in the World.

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