Murder is Easy

This early Poirot is a treat. Written and set in the late 1920s, it's both a highly satisfactory murder mystery, and a glimpse into a world long passed away.Ruth Kettering, an American heiress, has been at odds with her extremely well-bred but dissolute English husband. She decides to take the famous de luxe Blue Train to escape to the Riveria. But look -- isn't that her husband just a few berths down . . . ?Needless to say, another prominent passenger on this trip is Hercule Poirot, who appears here in his brash and self-aggrandizing early incarnation. Of course he is called in to consult when the unthinkable becomes the reality. The only thing I love more than a charming English setting and detail in an Agatha Christie novel is a charming foreign setting, and this is an excellent example.Highly recommended.

it's a Hercule Poiriot novel, where he gets to exercise his little grey cells on a murder and robbery of some famous rubies. The rubies in question are the focus of the start of the book, when they're bought by an American millionaire to give to his daughter. She's the apple of his eye and is currently married to the wrong man. He's been carrying on with a dancing girl, and so Papa decides that his darling Ruthie should cut her losses and divorce the dastardly Derek Kettering. However it doesn't all quite go to plan. once the background has been put in place (by way of jewel dealers, dancing girls and lots of beautiful stereotype characters) the cast is assembled and the train sets off the the South of France - only someone doesn't get there...
It's a murder and robbery that leave you wondering if it is one crime or two. Are they connected? Who has motive? Some have motive for one crime and not the other, some have an alibi, others do not. As usual, Poiriot gets to the bottom of it. I did find myself wondering about one character who seemed a little bit too good to be true, but won't spoil the surprise by giving it away. It all ends with the murderer unmasked and a fine match being made. A real evocation of an era past.

Who killed a wealthy American heiress on the luxury Blue Train while traveling to France to meet her lover? Was it her about-to-be-divorced-without-a-pence aristocrat husband? Or her French lover who only wanted her for her jewels? Or someone else entirely? Fortunately Hercule Poirot is on the case to bring about justice. An amusing note: Last year I started reading the Miss Marple and Poirot series in order, alternately between the two each month. I thought I was due to read a Poirot but I was mightily confused when this one started out in St. Mary Mead, the little village where Miss Marple spends her days between solving murders. The "old pussy" doesn't actually make an appearance here, and Poirot eventually turned up to reassure me that I hadn't messed up my reading schedule, but I thought it was amusing that Christie gave a sly nod to her other series within this one. And now I wonder: how would Miss Marple and Poirot have got on if they did wind up trying to solve a murder together??

Another good Poirot book. It was hard to get into, as the action didn't start immediately, but I enjoyed the character studies in the beginning. As slow as the murder actually was to present itself, though, the resolution felt rushed. That seems to be Christie's style as the books progress.

I know when I pick up an Agatha Christie book that I am going to enjoy the read and The Mystery Of The Blue Train did not disappoint. When the daughter of an American millonaire travels to the south of France on the luxury Blue Train, and is found dead upon arrival, suspicion falls upon her estranged husband. But Hercule Poirot is on the case and he has other ideas.Although it wasn’t difficult to figure out what happened, this story nevertheless held my attention and was very readable. I found Poirot a little more sympathetic than he usually is as he seemed to actually care about Katherine Grey, the young woman caught up in this murder. Originally published in novel form in 1928, this story was developed from one of her short stories, “The Plymouth Express” and is notable for the first mention of the fictional village of Mary St. Mead which was eventually to become the home of Miss Marple. I have read that Agatha Christie did not consider this book one of better ones, but I most certainly found this a very satisfying read.

On a train bound for the French Riviera, Poirot meets a young heiress, and becomes embroiled in a tragic murder case.

Christie herself admitted that she only cobbled this one together to make some money during a difficult time, so I don’t feel too bad about disliking "The Mystery of the Blue Train". The book has a few good elements: indeed the characters are intriguing, and a dynamic, very 1920s Poirot dominates the proceedings, but things don’t really come together. (Nor do they in the David Suchet adaptation.) Unsurprisingly, given the novel’s provenance, it feels perfunctory and – outside of Poirot himself – never vital.

This was the first Poirot novel I read, so it has a special place in my heart, and it’s certainly not his worst, in spite of Christie’s opinion. But it’s still not very good.

Interestingly, given it was a rush job, this novel introduces two recurring elements of Christie’s canon: Poirot’s valet George, and a description of the village of St. Mary Mead, which will later be home to Miss Marple.

Poirot ranking: 32 of 38

Agatha Christie focuses on many points of interest in regard to travel. The Mystery of the Blue Train, the infamous night express luxury train transports the wealthy from Calais to the French Riviera. Hercule Poirot happens to be one of the persons on this voyage, during which a woman is murdered, and her jewels are stolen. So begins the quest for the jewel thief and the murderer. So many red herrings in arresting the criminal. My thought ran with Rufus Van Aldin, the father of the victim. The dancer, Mirelle, aroused my suspicions. The French police go after Derek Kettering, the husband of the victim, and Armand the Comte de la Roche, the lover of the victim. Poirot follows all clues and investigates and comes to a different answer that he reaches with the assistance of Katherine Grey since Hastings does not grace this mystery. I really miss Hastings, but Katherine supplied a foil for Poirot. The descriptions of the characters and the settings stand as vivid reminders that Poirot notices everything.

Chosen because I have read a lot of disappointing novels lately and wanted something reliable, which this was.Ruth Kettering is murdered and priceless rubies stolen from her on the Blue Train across France to Nice. Also travelling on that train is Katherine Grey, who has just inherited a fortune, Ruth's estranged husband Derek, Derek's former mistress Mirelle, and (of course) Hercule Poirot.I enjoyed the first half of the story very much. There were humorous passages involving Poirot's egotism and Katherine's friends, but the actual solution was a little convoluted and left me slightly confused. SPOILERSWhat exactly was the Comte de la Roche's involvement? What money was Mirelle promising to get for him?

Even after reading several Poirot stories from Agatha Christie, I'm still always put on the wrong foot by this cunning author. I love the atmosphere of Europe during the interbellum which comes out of the story and of course the individual characters who are all forever under suspicion by Poirot. Very nice little story, recommended for anyone who likes mysteries.

As always Hercule Poirot always gets his man or woman. He does at times act a little stumped or confused but this is a very shrewd move on his part. He tries to put the people at ease so they feel as though they are safe. It has a new twist at every turn, if you think you know who the culprit is, do not make any bets on it. Not as good as others I have read but none the less it was well written.

A solid Poirot outing as Christie begins to hit her stride. And as a fan of train settings, I had all the more reason to like this one (even though trains don't dominate here).

Another Hercule Poirot story, and a relatively standard mystery. A woman gets killed. On a train of course. Who did it? The husband? The lover? The Butler? Who knows? Well, Poirot does. Not one of the best Christie's I've read, nor very original. Still, this book isn't bad. It continues to impress me how well Christie does dialogue. Even long-winded conversations between characters (of which there are quite a few in this book) somehow stay interesting and entertaining, yet plausible. I've come to expect that an Agatha Christie-book will keep me happy for the time it takes me to read it, and this one did. Just.

Typical Agatha Christie, with all the usual suspects, including Hercule Poirot. It twists and turns through plot twists, and challenges you to figure out the culprit without having all the information necessary. I pegged one likely culprit at the beginning, but a nice red herring led me away from that suspect down a blind alley. Turned out I was right in the first place. All those years of reading Agatha Christie served me well, if I would have trusted me instincts. Part of my re-reads project, I don't remember reading this one, though it has been more than 30 years since my last read of mystery novels. Fun and a quick read.

A cache of rubies that once belonged to Catherine the Great comes into the possession of an American millionaire. He gives them to his daughter - Ruth Kitteridge - who is married to a bankrupt English nobleman. She, however, is still in love with the French scoundrel who frequently scams his lovers. Meanwhile her husband, Derrick, is having an affair with a French exotic dancer - Mirelle. When Ruth takes the Blue Train to Nice to rendezvous with her lover she, unadvisedly, takes the rubies with her. When the train arrives, she is dead and the rubies are missing. Enter Hercule Poirot, who is at his best, putting together "all his little facts" and rearranging them until the puzzle is complete.

England, ca 1928Ruth Kettering bliver foræret nogle meget kostbare rubiner af sin far. Hun er ved at forlade sin mand og tager rubinerne med i Det Blå Tog mod rivieraen. Hun bliver kvalt i toget og hendes ansigt bliver knust. Faderen er dybt ulykkelig og hyrer Hercule Poirot, som også var med toget. Mr Goby hjælper faderen Rufus Van Aldin med oplysninger på svigersønnen Derek Kettering og dennes elskerinde danserinden Mirelle. Derek er i desperat pengenød og konens død vil hjælpe stærkt på det. Derek får afsmag for Mirelle og interesserer sig i stedet for Katherine Gray, som nylig har arvet en formue.En glat juvelhæler ved navn Papopolous har en datter Zia, der skylder Poirot en tjeneste for at have ladet en Antonio Pirezzio gå fri for sytten år siden.Hercule Poirot og Katherine Gray bliver venner og afslører til sidst kammertjeneren Richard Knighton og stuepigen Ada Mason som farlige forbrydere, der har Ruths død på samvittigheden.Glimrende Poirot mysterie.

American Ruth Kettering is in an unhappy marriage with Derek, an impoverished English aristocrat who had become too indiscreet. When Ruth's millionaire father convinces her to file for divorce, the scheming begins. Ruth is found dead on the train to the Riviera and Poirot finds a number of suspects all circling round the victim.I place this one firmly in the middle of Christie's work; it isn't one of her greats (And Then There Were None) and it certainly isn't one of her stinkers (hello, Elephants Can Remember). It's a solid Poirot that is difficult to figure out, mainly because the reader isn't given a vital piece of evidence until 20 pages from the end.I detect the beginnings of her later Murder on the Orient Express here, with a murder of a wealthy, entitled person on a train, though that's where the similarities end. MotOE is a masterpiece.

A nice return to form after the execrable The Big Four. The Poirot in this book is recognizably the same person as the one in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. In many ways this book is a novel interrupted by a murder and sidetrips into the world of international crime. The former is handled in the “ingeniously plotted” manner popular at that time and the latter is seems based more on the impressions Christie has picked up from watching films and reading popular fiction. Leave aside those elements and you have the unusually happy story of a companion who was left money and does not lose her head and man even get her man.The story of Katherine Grey has a flavour reminiscent of Persuasion and while we are following her slow flowering the reader may be distracting from the fact that Christie is also demonstrating that the only real function Hasting had in the earlier books is to watch and listen. Miss Grey watches, listens and if we read closely we realize that that was all Hastings really needed to do.

This was my second Agatha Christie, and my first read as an adult. I read "Murder on the Orient Express" when I was 11 or 12 and loved it. I've enjoyed several "Masterpiece" renditions of her books, so I thought I'd try another one. I had the same problem with this book that I had with those movies: that strange sense of being cheated when you find out that Poirot (or Miss Marple) knows things that you haven't yet been told. I always feel like I'm doing so well not being lured in by the obvious red herrings, and that I'm on my way to grasping the solution, and then right near the end, "BAM!" I get new details that screw everything up. I would just really love it, for once, if I could solve a mystery somewhere near Chapter Three. Then again, if I did, I don't know if I'd end up thinking much of the author.This book irritated me at first with its overly highbrow language and with the manner in which it introduces information. For at least the first seven chapters, it seems that we meet brand new characters in each chapter, and Christie gives as little and as distracting information about them as possible. When I started out, I read a chapter or two a day, but by the time of the actual "mystery" I couldn't keep up with what had happened, and had to go back and start over. The second time, I read the whole thing in one sitting. You have to read this book fast, or you'll probably get confused; it's not a "whenever I have a spare moment over the course of the next few weeks" kind of book. Fortunately, it only took me about three and a half hours to read.There must be something here, though, because while I feel both wildly unsatisfied with the solution to the whole thing and aggravated with the experience of reading it, I can't help but take it as a personal challenge to "get it right next time." You win this time, Hercule Poirot.

As I began reading Agatha Christie's The Mystery of the Blue Train, I thought this was going to be an indigo-tinted version of Murder on the Orient Express. The two novels bear some similarities: the confinement of a train chugging across Europe, a rich American murdered in her sleeping compartment, a cast of suspects with equal portions of motive and alibi, contradictory statements from witnesses, and a funny little Belgian detective with a luxurious moustache who's there to ferret out the truth. But it's not long before The Mystery of the Blue Train goes off on a different track than Murder on the Orient Express. While Blue Train is not quite as cleverly-plotted as "Orient Express, it's still a fun ride on par with Agatha's other "cozy mysteries." Published in 1928 (six years before Murder on the Orient Express), The Mystery of the Blue Train centers around Ruth Van Aldin, the daughter of an American millionaire, who is found strangled in her sleeping compartment on the train. This comes shortly after she's been given a priceless ruby as a gift from her father. Of course, the jewel is nowhere to be found on the train. As always, it's up to Hercule Poirot—-traveling on the same train—-to get to the bottom of the case. He's hired by Rufus Van Aldin who wants the scoundrel responsible for his daughter's murder caught and convicted of the crime. The list of suspects facing Poirot is daunting. There's Derek Kettering, Ruth's estranged husband of ten years who was just about to be served with divorce papers, thus ending his claim to the Van Aldin fortune. There's exotic dancer Mirelle, Derek's mistress, who would like nothing better than to see her lover's wife six feet under ground. There's Katherine Grey, a fellow passenger on the Blue Train who happened to strike up a conversation with Ruth shortly before her death and was quickly taken into the doomed woman's confidence. There's Major Knighton, Rufus Van Aldin's secretary who knows more about the ruby than he should. There's Ruth's maid, Ada Mason, who abruptly leaves the train before it reaches its destination. And the list goes on and on in true Christie fashion. She was the Queen of Bafflement, throwing so many would-be murderers at us that we're constantly shifting our suspicion as the novel goes along. Agatha's powers of description have never been keener than they are here in The Mystery of the Blue Train. Whether it's painting a succinct word-picture of a character—-"a little man with a face like a rat"-—or of the rubies themselves-—"the stones glowed like blood"—-her prose is unmistakably memorable. In this novel which comes early in Poirot's literary career, he seems more sprightly, more energetic and comedically pompous. Agatha rarely misses an opportunity to expound on the detective's methodology. Here's a sampling of comments from Poirot, I found scattered throughout the novel: "What is important? What is not? One cannot say at this stage. But we must note each little fact carefully." "This is great," said Van Aldin. "Great! You are the goods, M. Poirot. Once and for all, you are the goods." "It is nothing," said Poirot modestly. "Order, method, being prepared for eventualities beforehand—-that is all there is to it." "Unless you are good at guessing, it is not much use being a detective." "But I am a good detective. I suspect. There is nobody and nothing that I do not suspect. I believe nothing that I am told." The Poirot of this novel is one with a comically inflated ego. There is not nearly enough room for his personality on the page—-he explodes past the boundaries of the book with his sense of self-importance. Tiresome? Perhaps. But also very funny. Witness this exchange when he shows up to interview a pair of unsuspecting servants: "Voila," said the stranger, and sank into a wooden arm-chair. "I am Hercule Poirot." "Yes, Monsieur?" "You do not know the name?" "I have never heard it," said Hippolyte. "Permit me to say that you have been badly educated. It is the name of one of the great ones of this world." Yes, Poirot's truly one of the great ones—-and not just in his own mind. The Mystery of the Blue Train spotlights Poirot in one of his finest hours. The sleuthing is terrific and the writing is just as keen. I'll leave you with a few interesting bits of trivia about The Mystery of the Blue Train: *We get our first snapshot of St. Mary Mead in these pages. Katherine Grey has just left her job in the tiny village before she books passage on the Blue Train. We briefly meet some of the gossipy old birds in those scenes. One of them remarks, "You know, things don't happen in St. Mary Mead." Not, that is, until two years later when the first Miss Marple novel, Murder at the Vicarage, is published. *Theatrical agent Joseph Aarons makes a cameo near the end of the book. He also shows up in The Big Four, Murder on the Links, and Double Sin. *This is the first Poirot novel to be told in the third person with no narrator. Hastings is nowhere to be found (though Poirot does make a brief mention of his name late in the book—-I think Agatha did that just to remind people that Hastings was still out there somewhere). *The plot of Blue Train is an expansion of a short story, "The Plymouth Express," which appeared in the collection The Under Dog in 1951 in the USA and in 1974 in the UK under the title Poirot's Early Cases. Immediately after finishing Blue Train, I read the short story. While "The Plymouth Express" is nowhere near as good as the novel, Agatha does a good job of setting up (and revealing) a brain teaser within just a few short pages.

It is a good mystery with not just the incomparable Hercule Poirot helping solve the case, but also the intrepid Katherine whom he meets on the Blue Train (the one to the Cote d'Azur to Calais). There is a rich American heiress in a troubled marriage, her philandering husband, her doting and gruff father, along with the usual mix of household servants, rich and aging heiresses, and ne'er do wells.Somehow, though, this book did not keep my attention. I could smile at some of the more dated references and personalities, including the dancer who throws fantastic tantrums, and the plot twist at the end is pure Agatha Christie . . . but there was something about the writing style that was frankly boring. On the up side, the plot was tight, the mystery a surprise, and the characters had some depth. Just didn't hold my attention much.

Another great Hercule Poirot mystery by the queen of mysteries. In my opinion the book is much better than the movie, which didn’t convey the story as well as Mrs. Christie wrote it. It was a very well written book with an intricate plot, difficult to unwind—as her books generally are. You will notice Poirot had a much more foreign dialogue than her later books, which, I think, used to confer him more charm and appeal. I found it interesting that divorce is mentioned as the only possible alternative to one of the characters: in 1928 Mrs. Christie’s husband asked her for a divorce… Highly recommend this book for Agatha Christie’s fans.

Luke Fitzwilliam shares a train carriage with a lovely, if strange, old lady as they're both on their way to London. The woman seems nice, but has a curious story: she's on her way to Scotland Yard to report a mass murderer in her small country village. Luke listens politely but mentally dismisses the possibility, until he sees in the paper the next day that the old woman was killed by a hit-and-run just near the police station. He decides to investigate her story, which now seems like a very possible one. And so starts another Murder in a Small English Village mystery. And it's a good one. Tons of possible culprits, all with interesting motives, and a couple of excellent twists along the way. I figured out the Bad Guy *just* before they were revealed, which is exactly how I like it. Another win for Christie.

Luke, a retired cop who worked overseas, returns home to England and meets an elderly lady who is on her way to Scotland Yard to report a series of seeming murders in her small town. When the old lady is killed and her prediction as to who is next to be murdered comes true, Luke takes on the challenge of finding out if there is a murderer loose and who it might be.

Elements from this story borrowed into episodes of TV shows- Anouria as an old-fashioned, oddly creepy lady from an old family(Midsomer Murders has a murderess by this name, similar sort of character). Bottle of hat dye switched with cough medicine as a murder method for killing a maid(I don't recall offhand which show and episode this was used in).

Chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter & supposition... lots & lots of supposition....Boooooooooooooooooooooooring!A former British police office just back from Africa is on a train when an old woman sits across from him and proceeds to tell him about a series of murders in the small village where she lives...... She also tells him that she has just warned the local doctor that he could be next, and she knows this by the look in the murderer's eyes.He dismisses the old woman's story as fancy. Unbeknownst to him, on her way to Scotland Yard she is run down by a car....... What sets him off on his investigation is the notice that the Doctor has died.....From the point where he arrives in the village the story just falls short..... I didn't care about the characters, I didn't like them, they had no redeeming qualities......As for this being a Superintendent Battle mystery, he doesn't come into the story until the very end and really has not active part in it at all!

This was a bit of a disappointment coming from Dame Agatha. The man character, retired policeman Luke Fitzwilliam, is returning from a longterm posting in Singapore when he meets an elderly woman on the train who tells him she is traveling to London to report a series of murders occurring in her village. She feels she must report to Scotland Yard as she is the only person who suspects a series of deaths is actually a series of murders. However, Luke learns that shortly after they parted at the train in London, the old woman was run down by a hit and run driver. His curiosity is aroused and he ends up in the village, unofficially investigating the mysterious deaths. I felt it was pretty easy to figure out who the murderer was by halfway through the book and the characters seemed flat, not intriguing. I love Christie, but I can't recommend this very strongly. It's not bad, but it's not Christie at her best.

This book reminds me of the movie Gosford Park. It's because the guilty party is not what is hinted at and I fell for the red herrings hook line and sinker. Unlike the movie, the book is disappointing beyond redemption. It's a good enough book, but the murder of Lavinia Fullerton is incredulous for me. The old push and shove from the crowd is fine, but how does the murderer convey that the car that hit her is a Rolls. Did the murderer keep on following Lavinia waiting for the perfect crime to occur? To my mild credit, I didn't once think that the murderer would be a man. I thought it was Bridget. I was confident. I thought I'd solved the murders at only 38 % read. Serves me right for underestimating Dame Agatha. But you must admit that Bridget would make for a superb twist.

Luke Fitzwilliam, returning to London from abroad chances to meet a chattery old lady on the train. She is all worked up about her Persian cat, "Wonkey Pooh," and his ear infection. At this point, I knew I was going to love the story. I returned to my chair, out of which I had fallen in a fit of guffaws, and resumed the narrative. It seems the elderly lady is planning a visit to enlighten Scotland Yard regarding the perpetrator of a series of ingenious murders. Fitzwilliam, a retired policeman, can't resist trying to get at the truth of the story . He meets a series of unforgettable characters. For example, the colorful Mr. Ellsworthy, effete proprietor of an antique shop, can hardly bear to part with any of his curios, and prices them accordingly. In his spare time, he organizes Satanic rituals in the "Witches Meadow" at midnight. His friends come up from the city to join in the revels--- "Three extraordinary people...Item one, a man with shorts, spectacles and a lovely plum-colored silk shirt! Item two, a female with no eyebrows, dressed in a peplum, a pound of assorted sham Egyptian beads and sandals. Item three, a fat man in a lavender suit and co-respondent shoes...'Someone has whispered that there will be gay doings in the Witches' Meadow tonight.'" Eventually, Fitzwilliam apprehends the killer, just in time to save his true love from violent death, and all is well. Christie at her best.

When Luke Fitzwilliam meets Lavinia Pinkerton on a train on his first day back in England, he is charmed by this imaginative elderly lady who reminds him of his aunt. She's on her way to consult Scotland Yard about a string of accidental deaths in her village. He dismisses her belief that the “accidents” were actually murders – until he reads about her death in a hit-and-run accident in the next day's paper. Luke heads for the village to finish what Miss Pinkerton started, claiming to be writing a book on local superstitions about death so that his questions about the deadly “accidents” wouldn't raise too much suspicion.While Luke isn't quite as clueless as Hastings, he's definitely not Hercule Poirot. Had Poirot been on the case, this might have been a short story rather than a novel. Luke's process is logical and methodical, but he overlooks some important clues. The local knowledge and insight of his host, his supposed “cousin” Bridget Conway, keeps Luke from getting too far off track.As in most of Christie's Superintendent Battle books, the superintendent has only a minor role in the book, while young people do most of the detecting. I've always liked Christie's Tommy and Tuppence novels and have regretted that she didn't write more of them. Murder Is Easy, The Secret of Chimneys, and The Seven Dials Mystery have a similar feel to the Tommy and Tuppence books and are almost as much fun.

This is classic Agatha Christie. Luke Fitzwilliam, a British policeman just retired from service abroad, finds himself traveling by train opposite a dear old spinster who flutters out a most astonishing theory: that there is a serial murderer loose in her little country village, and she knows who the next victim will be. And she's proved right—well, almost. Because she didn't realize the very next victim would be herself. Luke, stunned by the coincidence, decides to undertake an investigation. Wychwood is a sleepy little village where the worst scandal is a remnant of Satanic rituals played at by a local dilettante. It's hardly the place where one would expect a maniacal murderer to reside. But murder is so easy, so very easy if you do it carefully...This story possesses a sly awareness of itself as a work of fiction; at one point one of the female characters muses how the heroines of books are never killed though they live in constant danger; in another place Luke, deducing, tells himself this is not a book and so things may not necessarily follow the pattern set by books; and later Luke introduces himself as a private investigator just like the ones found in the pages of detective fiction. This mystery also reflects the tenuous relationship between the author and reader, a relationship curious and unique to this particular genre. How much does the author give in the way of real clues, and how much does the reader want to undermine the author's efforts by guessing the murderer before the big reveal? I admit it: I was duped most of the way through. Christie sets up elaborate red herrings and writes chapters devoted to analyzing the motives of a bunch of innocent suspects. I marveled a little at her for being able (and patient) to spin it out as long as she does. Not that it drags. Christie writes economically and well; her character delineations are crisp and to the point, and her dialogue is excellent. I listened to this on audiobook read by Hugh Fraser, and he does a brilliant job with the various characters. Hints of ugly pagan rites, a cast of decidedly interesting and intertwined characters, a sympathetic hero, an enigmatic heroine, and several fascinating theories about how easy it is to get away with murder combine to make this a good all-round mystery and satisfying read. Recommended, especially for those who would like a Christie mystery not featuring Miss Marple, Poirot, or the Beresfords.