Tag: poison

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.

March 1946 issue ~ cover art by Rafael DeSoto

March 1946 issue

cover art by Rafael DeSoto

~ Thorne Lee, “The Mad Dog of Lame Creek”, author’s sole appearance in BM

~ Julius Long, “Forgive Not Our Trespassers”, 11th of 17 stories with ‘Ben Corbett, D.A.’s chief investigator, 1st -person narrator’, 16th of 23 stories in BM

~ Dick Pearce, “Homicide Hangover”, ‘Major Bill Boyle, just back from WWII’, only appearance in BM

~ H.H. Stinson, “You’re the Crime in My Coffin”, ‘Gerry Fowler of Fox, Fox, Shapiro & Fox, law firm’, 22nd of 27 stories in BM

~ Fergus Truslow, “The Killing Was Mutuel”, ‘Private snoop Galahan around Del Mar (California)’, 3rd of 6 stories in BM

~ K. Webster, “One Fall for Murder, ‘Steve Ransom, reporter; wrestling story’, last of 3 stories in BM

©Seattle Mystery Bookshop

[cover updated 1/29/26]