Malice Aforethought

⚖The case for it

Iles does something perverse: he tells you what kind of man you are stuck with early, then dares you to keep reading a narrator you have every reason to loathe. Dr. Bickleigh reasons his way toward something monstrous in increments so calm they pass for common sense, and the unease comes from following the logic and half-agreeing. The interest moves off the crime and onto the workings of a mind rationalizing itself. Iles built the method that later mystery writers would lean on for decades, and in print it still works. The final chapters tighten the grip.

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

Once the famous first page hands you the murderer, the book has to coast on Dr. Bickleigh's company, and he is a self-pitying snob in a village of snobs. The middle stretch of affairs and tennis parties drags; the misogyny is period-accurate and wearing. Ingenious in 1931, the inverted structure now reads like the pilot episode of a genre you've already binged.

— the honest librarian