One of her lesser books, if I must say. The main character is retired policeman, Luke Fitzwilliam. Luke has discovered that an elderly woman who had professed to know something of murders in her village, has died, under mysterious circumstances, along with another villager. He comes to town, bent on discovering the identity of the killer. He spends most of the book ruminating over all the potential killers, ruling them out, and then putting them back under suspicion. There’s a strange romance, he involves himself in( Christie does have a habit of doing that once in a while,). The identity of the killer wasn’t much of a surprise to me. Luke doesn’t even play much into the discovery of the killer . This is billed as Superintendent Battle number four, but he hardly has a role in this book , he shows up for a couple pages and that’s It. It was a decent read, but nothing spectacular or memorable.

Reread November 2021

Honestly, the only reason I wanted to reread this book was because I watched a perfectly horrid adaptation and I wanted to see if the book was anywhere close to as awful as the movie was. Let me tell you, it was close. (At least a couple of the murders made better sense in the book.)

The mystery itself was okay. Fairly sub-standard but serviceable enough. The horrible things about this book was 1) Luke, 2) Bridget and 3) Luke and Bridget as a couple. Honestly, Luke was awful to spend time in the head of and, really, only liked the pretty girls in the village. He had no sense when it came to investigating a case and certainly didn't act like a retired policeman. Bridget was...not as bad. In fact, the worst thing about her was her attraction to Luke. (She says, basically, that he treats her beastly but apparently she likes it. So, yeah, there is that.) Luke and Bridget as a couple was as bad as the adaptation I saw and I couldn't believe it until I read it. (Not even to the halfway point and he's asking this engaged woman to marry him.)

Really, it's no surprise that I couldn't remember anything about this book. My lasting impression upon a reread won't be anything to do with the mystery, but rather the horrendous 'romance.'

Agatha-Christie-land is my new favourite place to dwell. Full of convoluted crimes that keep me guessing until the end.
This tale is set in a quintessentially quaint English village complete with plenty of bizarre characters, any of whom could be the dastardly murderer! Oh, and there's some tempestuous romance - yes please. Particularly loved the mental cover art - what on earth was the boomerang about, did I miss that bit in a post-nightshift read? Answers on a post-card, please!

The beginning was good.
The middle was exciting. It got really terrifying. To the last I wasn't sure who the murderer was. I suspected everyone.
The ending was... disappointing. Especially when she explained when she realized who the murderer was. Sure, she did... Agatha wasn't at all sure when she wrote the events leading to that.