Abandoned by user

This isn't a review so much as it is some random thoughts.

First, this book begins on a train, so if you are ever looking for a book involving train travel, but you don't want to go with either of the Poirot possibilities, this one will fit. Luke Fitzwilliam, our main character, has just returned to England after working as a policeman in Malay. He meets Miss Pinkerton in the train car and spends a bit of time socializing with her, as she is an elderly woman who reminds him of his Aunt Mildred.

Not his Aunt Jane, although Miss Pinkerton is pretty obviously a Jane Marple analog. Murder is Easy was published in 1938, after Murder at the Vicarage (published in 1930), but before The Body in the Library - Christie wouldn't bring back Jane Marple until 1942. It's interesting that Miss Pinkerton is one of the first victims in the book. Wychwood Under Ashe, the setting for Murder is Easy, is also very reminiscent of St. Mary Mead.

This is also nominally an Inspector Battle book, although he doesn't appear until after the 80% mark (page 224 out of 254) and he really does almost nothing except make Luke Fitzwilliam feel like an idiot. I'm not sure why Agatha decided to wedge Battle into the book when it was moving along perfectly well without him.

There are other issues with the book, including one of the means of murder. She falls back on the really unconvincing "infecting a wound with bacteria" means of murder that she also used in Cards on the Table (if my memory serves) and it doesn't work any better here than there (actually, it's worse here, b/c the victim is a doctor). In reading this book for the second time, her machinations behind the scene are more obvious, and the misdirection is a little bit heavy-handed.

What does work pretty well, though, is the confrontation between the murder and the intended final victim, which is a genuinely suspenseful and fairly terrifying few moments. There are also elements of Towards Zero at work here, but that book is much more successful than this one, in my opinion.

This is a middling Christie, better than her worst, no where near her best, but still worth reading. With 66 books, that's going to encompass the majority of her work.

I'll be using this for Snakes & Ladders, but I haven't quite decided where yet.