Anthony Berkeley, pseudonym of Anthony Berkeley Cox Biography

British crime writer, born in Watford, educated at University College, London. He contributed to Punch, and under his own name published several comic novels (e.g. Brenda Entertains, 1925); as Francis Iles he reviewed crime and other fiction for the Daily Telegraph and later the Sunday Times and Manchester Guardian. The Layton Court Mystery (1925) was the first of a series of bright and amusing detective stories written under the name of Berkeley, most of which have the amateur detective Roger Sheringham as their central figure. Others include The Wychford Poisoning Case (1926), The Silk Stocking Murders (1928), The Piccadilly Murder (1929), Jumping Jenny (1933; US title Dead Mrs Stratton), and The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929), originally a short story, which is undoubtedly the best. Very different from these are the three powerful and realistic psychological studies of crime and murder published under the name of Francis Iles—Malice Aforethought (1931), Before the Fact (1932), and As for the Woman (1939), which have little or no detective element. He was the founder, in 1928, of the Detection Club and became its first honorary secretary.