MURDER IS EASY
US title: EASY TO KILL
UK publication: 1939 (Collins)
US publication: 1939 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Luke Fitzwilliam
Genre: Nove
Plot
summary and comments: A series of murders is committed in a sleepy
village near London; they are investigated by Luke Fitzwilliam, who happens
to be a policeman but is detecting out of curiosity. A chance encounter
with an old woman (Lavinia Pinkerton) in a train who is on her way to
report a series of deaths to Scotland Yard, and her subsequent "accident",
interest Fitzwilliam enough to send him to Wychwood-under-Ashe to investigate.
Most of the characters are suspects, including Mr. Ellsworthy (one of
Christie's few homosexuals), an antique shop keeper; and Honoria Wynflete,
Miss Pinkerton's friend in the village, who is rather like Miss Marple.
Superintendent Battle is called in near the end, but it is Fitzwilliam
who solves the crime.
::READERS REVIEWS::
To my utter amazement, I worked out who the murderer was halfway through the book - and spent the next half of the book metaphorically screaming at Luke and Bridget for their stupidity in not seeing it.
"Murder is Easy" is quite a good little mystery. There's a bit more romantic tension than is usual for Agatha Christie and many fun red herrings to get diverted by. It's a little loose in its execution, though - the supposed "macabre" atmosphere and Luke's cover story are very perfunctorily handled, for example.
Still, I enjoyed it.
The possibility that murder is easy is the focus of this ingenious little novel. Ideas for writing murder mysteries certainly came easily to Agatha Christie during her long writing career. She devises a memorable opening to this one. She also turns a cozy convention she had helped to establish on its head in order to thwart the reader's attempt to guess whodunit.
The game she plays with the reader here necessitates having neither Hercule Poirot nor Miss Marple participating. The sleuth is Luke, a recuperating young man who chances to share a railway carriage with a garrulous old lady, Miss Pinkerton, who is on her way to Scotland Yard to enlist help in putting an end to a series of accidental deaths in her village, deaths that she believes are murders. Intrigued, especially when she is killed by a hit and run driver before reaching her destination, he decides to investigate.
So expect to enjoy time with him in an English village full of eccentrics where all the work is done by servants and most of the time is spent in gossip. Don't expect sophisticated prose or an intrusive narrator. Agatha Christie keeps herself well hidden, directing a large cast as they deliver banal dialogue, and contriving wonderfully well to lead suspicion away from the killer.
::YOUR OPINION::
