Jumping Jenny - Tapa blanda

A Roger Sheringham mystery by Golden Age author Anthony Berkeley Gentleman sleuth Roger Sheringham is at a weekend house party when one of the guests is found hanged. The victim has spent most of the evening talking about suicide and had, apparently, left the party after a row with her husband. Life would be best for everyone if the death was suicide, but is that verdict too much to hope for? The victim was extremely unpopular, and many people's lives would be better off without her. Some might even say that she deserved to die. What conclusion will the Coroner come to?

Born in 1893, Anthony Berkeley (Anthony Berkeley Cox) was a British crime writer and a leading member of the genre's Golden Age. Educated at Sherborne School and University College London, Berkeley served in the British army during WWI before becoming a journalist. His first novel, The Layton Court Murders, was published anonymously in 1925. It introduced Roger Sheringham, the amateur detective who features in many of the author's novels including the classic Poisoned Chocolates Case. In 1930, Berkeley founded the legendary Detection Club in London along with Agatha Christie, Freeman Wills Crofts and other established mystery writers. It was in 1938, under the pseudonym Francis Iles (which Berkeley also used for novels) that he took up work as a book reviewer for John O'London's Weekly and The Daily Telegraph. He later wrote for The Sunday Times in the mid 1940s, and then for The Guardian from the mid 1950s until 1970. A key figure in the development of crime fiction, he died in 1971.