![]() Berkeley seamlessly layers the puzzle with a poignant depiction of the thwarted love between the amateur sleuth Stephen Munro, an army officer turned footman, and Pauline Mainwaring, engaged to an older, richer brute. Here a young woman named Cicely manages to vanish during a séance, in the company of others, with no visible means of escape. Now THE WINTRINGHAM MYSTERY (Harper 360/Collins Crime Club, 236 pp., $16.99), which was originally published in book form in 1927, has finally been rediscovered, and it’s as much of a treat as Berkeley’s strongest mystery, “The Poisoned Chocolates Case.” ![]() ![]() It was so fiendishly difficult that Christie couldn’t crack the case. One of them involved determining the solution to a 1926 serialized story by one of her crime-writing peers, Anthony Berkeley. Speaking of Christie, early in her career she was known to enter - and sometimes win - puzzle contests sponsored by local newspapers. ![]() So in a nod to our current tough times, this column moves to the cozier side of the genre aisle. ![]() It’s an understandable urge: As readers, sometimes we want our escapism to be a little gentler, a little less violent, unmarred by quite so much blood and gore. In tough times of the past, many mystery buffs sought comfort more than darkness - Agatha Christie’s greatest sales, for example, began during World War II. ![]()
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