"The Layton Court Mystery" - Anthony Berkeley

 (Roger Sheringham book 1)

📚TLCM strikes me as slightly unusual from other classic locked-room mysteries for a few reasons. It has a lightly satirical tone, and reads almost like a send-up of Golden Age tropes. Our cheerful amateur sleuth has strolled into a country-house party teeming with guests. Sure, there’s a corpse in the library and everyone’s a suspect, but Sheringham is determined to have fun solving this case.

📚Sheringham gives Lord Peter Wimsey vibes. Sheringham’s imperturbability is rather surprising given that he is rash and prone to leap to conclusions (unusual characteristics for a Golden Age detective). His humorous twinkle emerges particularly when goading his straitlaced friend Grierson, the unwilling Watson to his Sherlock. 

📚 NB: published in 1925, it’s mostly a genial Golden Age mystery, however there is 1 line of shocking anti-Semitism.