May 1943 issue ~ cover art by Rafael DeSoto

May 1943 issue

cover art by Rafael DeSoto

Cornell Woolrich, “Mind over Murder”

W.T. Ballard, “A Heel of the First Water”

Dale Clark, “Death is from Taxes” (Plates O’Rion)

Duane Yarnell, “Murder is My Meat”

Frederick C. Davis, “Home Sweet Homicide” (Bill Brant)

Henry Norton, “Bait”

[updated 5/14/25]

1951 Pocket reissue

one of SMB founder Bill Farley’s Top Five Mysteries of all time. Sir Eustace is a cad of the first water, with a specialty in other men’s wives, and the list of people who might want to do him in could fill a London phone book. But which of them actually sent the chocolates with their nasty hidden payload? Scotland Yard is baffled. Enter the Crime Circle, a group of society intellectuals with a shared conviction in their ability to succeed where the police have failed. Eventually, each member will produce a tightly reasoned solution to the Case of the Poisoned Chocolates, but each of those solutions will identify a different murderer. First published in 1929, this is both a classic of the golden age of mystery fiction, and one of the great puzzle-mysteries of all time.