Anthony Berkeley

Anthony Berkeley was an English crime writer and one of the most innovative and influential figures of the golden age of detective fiction. Born Anthony Berkeley Cox in Watford in 1893, he studied Classics at University College London and served in the First World War before becoming a full-time writer. He wrote under multiple pseudonyms including Francis Iles and A. Monmouth Platts. Berkeley is celebrated for revolutionising the detective novel: under his own name, he wrote witty, puzzle-focused mysteries featuring the amateur detective Roger Sheringham (including The Poisoned Chocolates Case); under the name Francis Iles, he invented the psychological crime novel with Malice Aforethought and Before the Fact — books that reveal the murderer from the start and focus on psychology rather than puzzle. The Wintringham Mystery is one of his earlier works, published under the A. Monmouth Platts pseudonym. He also founded the Detection Club, the famous association of crime writers. He died in 1971. His audiobooks and books offer listeners and readers golden age crime fiction at its most inventive — mysteries written by someone who was always pushing the genre forward and asking what a detective novel could become.