From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Malice Aforethought

Francis Iles

Start date: August 1, 2022

Finish date: August 31, 2022

Discussion: Group Challenges

Why we're reading this: Next in our Detection Club challenge
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Group Challenges

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) by Agatha Christie
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last updated Sep 02, 2025 12:08AM

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) - SPOILER Thread
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What Members Thought

Jul 19, 2022 Susan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Francis Iles was a pseudonym used by Anthony Berkeley Cox and this crime novel, written in 1931, is really something new. It was not a typical Golden Age mystery, but rather it was something very new, in which we know who the murderer is. Dr Edmund Bickleigh is a country doctor, hen-picked by his wife, Julia, who reminds him constantly that she has married beneath her. Although he seems a bit pathetic, he has a love for the ladies and, rather like Romeo, who quickly forgets Rosline, when Juliet ...more

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Aug 01, 2022 Susan in NC rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: det-club-2022

3.5 stars for the writing, humor and characters, I can see why it’s a classic inverted mystery, but one star on my personal scale, as I really don’t enjoy being in a psychopath’s head, and didn’t like reading this for the most part. I felt like a rubbernecking driver passing a bloody crash on a highway - can’t look away!

We know from the first page who the murderer is, because the author tells us. The opening scene, at a tennis party given in a Devonshire village by Dr. Edmund Bickleigh and his w ...more

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Oct 18, 2021 Amy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, 2021, brit-trip

Everything about this book was perfection. I wish I could go back and read it for a first time again.

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Aug 04, 2023 Roger Pettit rated it it was amazing

During the so-called Golden Age of detective fiction (the 1920s, the 1930s and the 1940s), most of the novels produced in that genre took the form of a whodunnit. The author and the reader were locked together in a harmless battle of wits with each other as to the identity of a murderer. Such stories were essentially puzzles to be solved, and nothing more. There was a plot with a detective - often an amateur one - and a murder victim or victims. The writer provided clues. The reader was invited During the so-called Golden Age of detective fiction (the 1920s, the 1930s and the 1940s), most of the novels produced in that genre took the form of a whodunnit. The author and the reader were locked together in a harmless battle of wits with each other as to the identity of a murderer. Such stories were essentially puzzles to be solved, and nothing more. There was a plot with a detective - often an amateur one - and a murder victim or victims. The writer provided clues. The reader was invited to solve the crime before the identity of the culprit was revealed at the end of the story, often in bizarrely outlandish circumstances where all the suspects were gathered together for a melodramatic denouement. The reader was permitted no emotional engagement with the characters. The puzzle and its solution were all that mattered. The foremost writer of such stories during that time was, of course, Agatha Christie. Almost fifty years after her death, she is apparently still the world’s most popular author, outselling all others. Her achievements are truly astonishing. Another Golden Age writer of whodunnits was Anthony Berkeley, who was much less prolific than Dame Agatha but almost as skilful in his construction of lively, entertaining puzzle stories. Berkeley also wrote a few innovative crime novels under a different name, Francis Iles. The first of these, published in 1931, was ‘Malice Aforethought’, which can quite reasonably be described as the forerunner of the crime story as we know it today.

‘Malice Aforethought’ dispenses with the puzzle element that was so popular at the time. In its place Iles fashioned a superbly crafted inverted whodunnit. The identity of the murderer is revealed at the outset. (The very first sentence of the story is: “It was not until several weeks after he had decided to murder his wife that Doctor Bickleigh took any active steps in the matter.”.) The urge to read on is prompted by the need to know how the murderer plans and commits his crime; what his motivations are; and whether he is brought to justice. (The very popular American television series ‘Columbo’ would, some forty or so years later, achieve success in a similarly inventive way.)

The setting is the fictional Devonshire hamlet of Wyvern’s Cross. The local doctor, Edmund Bickleigh (aged 37), has been locked into an unhappy marriage to his older and ostensibly domineering wife Julia for ten years. Bickleigh seeks solace in the arms of other women. He engages in an affair with one local resident and becomes infatuated with another. Matters become more complicated when he then falls in love with a newcomer to the area, Madeleine Cranmere. Desperately yearning to be with Madeleine, Bickleigh exploits his medical expertise and access to drugs and kills his wife. But will he get away with the crime?

With its emphasis on character as much as plot, ‘Malice Aforethought’ brilliantly breaks away from the conventions of the crime novel that were prevalent at the time. It is beautifully written and constructed and has a page-turning quality equal to that of much of Agatha Christie’s work. What is more, there is a delightful twist at the end, one that is a match for almost any that Dame Agatha produced. ‘Malice Aforethought’ is a very entertaining and supremely readable novel. ...more

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Jul 28, 2022 Frances rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: chose-not-to-finish

Only read the first half, then decided not to waste the time to finish. Billed as a golden age type mystery only without a mystery, I found this a completely unappealing tale with an unlikeable and pettily unpleasant main character, who is inexplicably loved by several young women who could certainly do better. I gave up about half way through.

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Sep 22, 2017 Paperbackreader rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: all-collections, read-but-unowned, british, classic, crime, inverted-mysteries

The best part about "Malice Aforethought" is it does not feel dated. It is hard to believe that this book came out in 1931. If I were to sum this book up in a few sentences it would be, unpleasant people doing unpleasant things, all of them receive some comeuppance for their unpleasant deeds, some suffer more than others. In some ways, it reminded me of Jim Thompson's "The Killer Inside Me". A complex inner monologue making up the bulk of the narrative where a murderer thinks about and carries o ...more

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Aug 03, 2022 Gina Dalfonzo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I read this for the Goodreads Reading the Detectives August challenge. There was some wonderfully wicked satire (it's hilarious to watch the way Dr. Birkleigh falls for the most obvious flattery) and some fascinating character development. A few of the scientific details went over my head and interfered a bit with my ability to follow things, but on the whole I enjoyed it. ...more

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