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MURDER IS EASY
by Agatha Christie
HarperCollins, March 2004
Abridged audiobook pages
13.99GBP
ISBN: 0007170483


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

MURDER IS EASY is my absolute, all-time favorite Christie. First published in 1939, the book has not achieved the status among Christie devotees that it deserves.

Luke Fitzwilliam, a British police officer who has served in the Middle East, is now back in England on a long-awaited leave. On his way to London, he happens to find a seat in a railway compartment with a woman who reminds him of one of his favorite aunts. During the journey, Miss Pinkerton regales Luke with tales of a serial killer at work in her cozy little country village of Wychwood. She is at that very moment on her way to Scotland Yard to ask that they investigate this series of suspicious deaths because she believes local law enforcement to be incapable of handling a murder case.

Luke is at first amused, believing Miss Pinkerton to be somewhat paranoid, but when he reads in the Times that she has been killed by a hit-and-run driver and later that Dr Humbleby, the man whom she suspected would be the next murder victim, has died, he decides to head to Wychwood to investigate.

The story is peopled by a lively cast of cottage cozy characters. These characters are more fully drawn than they are in the usual Miss Marple and they each have little twists to that lead the reader to believe that Dame Agatha is gently mocking her own novels.

Indeed, the swiftly-moving and fascinating plot of MURDER MADE EASY is in some ways Miss Marple turned on her head. There's lots of action here. Before the story opens there have already been two poisonings, two falls, and a case of septicemia. During the course of the novel two more people die, one by hit-and-run and another by a blow to the head.

It's as if the absence of Poirot and Miss Marple allow Christie a little more freedom for whimsy. The resulting story is fresher and more lively than most of her work. There is a love interest for the protagonist, for example, that allows Christie to write some uncharacteristically steamy dialogue. There are more misleading clues and twists to the plot than in most of her books, and the climax is an absolute triumph of the unexpected.

Hugh Fraser, who plays Captain Hastings in the BBC productions of Poirot, reads exceptionally well. It seems he too has been freed of the series characters and allowed to create his own interpretations of some pretty quirky people.

Reviewed by Carroll Johnson, January 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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