Anthony Berkeley Cox

Before the Fact is a novel by Anthony Berkeley writing under the pen name "Francis Iles". Iles' novel is experimental in that it is not a whodunit: It does not take long to determine the identity of the villain and his motives. According to Colin Dexter, Before the Fact is a "crime novel" rather than a "detective …

Malice Aforethought is a murder mystery novel written by Anthony Berkeley Cox, using the pen name Francis Iles. It is an early and prominent example of the "inverted detective story", invented by R. Austin Freeman some years earlier. The murderer's identity is revealed in the first line of the novel, which gives the …