A club of amateur detectives meets and is presented with a problem to solve: a real crime where someone's eaten some poisoned chocolates. Each of the club members proposes a different solution to the case.

I can't remember where I heard about this, but it sounded quite interesting - six possible answers to the same puzzle. However, it's not quite like that. Specifically, not all the detectives are presented with the same information to work on. So the reader can't play the game - each new chapter reveals new information that you couldn't have known.

And some of the "solutions" rest on what seems to be pretty flimsy deduction. E.g. This isn't a gentlemanly murder at all. A public-school man, if he could ever bring himself to anything so unconventional as murder, would use an axe or a revolver or something which would bring him and his victim face to face. He would never murder a man behind his back, so to speak. I'm quite sure of that.

One thing which was a bit interesting was that reference was made to real-life cases "our murderer must have had that case in mind" which, when I checked, are factual and appear on Wikipedia.

So an interesting sort of idea but not realised.

Completed : 25-Nov-2017