Publisher: Collins Crime Club
Country: Great Britain
Publication Date: November 1957
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 256
Rating
Blurb
Elspeth McGillicuddy was not a woman usually given to hallucinations. But when she witnesses what appears to be a woman being strangled on a train and no-one else sees it, no-one reports it and no corpse is found she turns to her old friend Jane Marple to help solve the puzzle. Marple asks her highly efficient and intelligent young acquaintance, Lucy Eyelesbarrow to infiltrate the Crackenthorpe family, who seem to be at the heart of the mystery, and help unmask a murderer.
My thought
An Agatha Christie novel nearly always guarantees you: good characters, a twisting, turning plot and a good dose of stodgy 1950's English pomp. Full of red herrings, this one details a most original setting for murder.
The mystery turned out a lot better than I thought it would. As usual Agatha Christie keeps you guessing until the very end, and that is what I absolutely love about her writing. So far, for me, this has been the best Miss Marple mystery I've read so far.
Christie’s books were rather light faire, something you could read after having finished something dark or heavy and needed a respite. Often she would make little remarks in her books, telling the reader they have received all the information needed to solve the mystery. This used to just drive me nuts, because I had, as yet, no idea “who-dun-it.” I can brag, but not very stridently, there were a few times I had actually solved the mystery correctly, but only a few. Ms. Christie not only wrote mysteries, but had at least one very real mystery of her own. There was a period when she just dropped completely out of site. Don’t hold me to this, but I think she was missing for a couple of years. I don’t think she ever revealed where she was, or what she was doing for that period of time. Hummmm!
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