Anthony Smith Berkeley

One of my favorite things to do is make lists. There are several Five to Try lists available on this blog already, and last year I posted my Top Ten 1930s mysteries. That was a list generated as my contribution to a Book Club discussion. It was a great deal of fun to put together, even if it was distressing having to leave some favorites on the cutting room floor. One reason for this was our rule that we wouldn’t allow more than one book per author.

Anthony Berkeley was a journalist, novelist, and founding member of the Detection Club - whose members included Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers - and was one of crime fiction's greatest innovators, developing the idea of the psychological crime novel in the 1920s and 30s. One of Berkeley’s recurring and most-beloved characters was Roger Sheringham, a novelist and amateur detective.

Deborah Royce Goodrich. Post Hill, $27 (272p) ISBN 978-1-63758-496-5 The discovery of a severed hand washed ashore on the Florida barrier island of Palm Beach propels this tightly constructed psychological thriller from Royce (Ruby Falls). Linda Alonso, who lives on Palm Beach, fears the hand may be a clue to the recent disappearance of her husband and their two small children.