The Layton Court Mystery

Anthony Berkeley opened his crime-writing career with this 1925 country-house puzzle, the first case for his amateur detective Roger Sheringham. When the wealthy Victor Stanworth is found shot in the locked library of Layton Court, the household is ready to call it suicide. Sheringham, a house guest with a novelist’s curiosity and a habit of talking too much, is not. With his young friend Alec Grierson trailing along, he picks at alibis and physical clues until the tidy explanation falls apart. Berkeley first published it anonymously, and much of its charm lies in a detective who guesses wrong as often as right, a sly rebuke to the infallible sleuths then in fashion. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available to download.