Publication date: 1965
Summary: Not nearly as far-fetched as most of her espionage novels, this one has an underlying murder story only tangentially connected to the crime syndicate plot. Miss Marple enjoys a two-week stay at the eternally unchanging luxury hotel, Bertram's. During this time she begins to suspect that the hotel may be a front for some other activity - it's simply too good to be true. The novel revolves around two women, a mother and daughter: adventuress Bess Sedgewick and her estranged daughter, Elvira Blake. While mom does her best to avoid her daughter, her daughter seems overly preoccupied with the idea that someone is trying to kill her. What makes this novel interesting is not Miss Marple, who's powers of deduction are given little show, but the denouement - we don't quite get that this story of espionage is also a murder case until the end and the murderer, icily detached, gets away with it.
Body count: One death
Detective/Sleuth: Miss Marple, Father
Rating: 3 night's stay out of 5
Commentary:
Sunday, February 13, 2011
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Dear Matt,
ReplyDeleteI read this novel a little bit later after I read A Caribbean Mystery and this one was interesting and different. I like the setting at Bertram's Hotel and the fact that the place seems unchanging and is in its cozy and peaceful atmosphere as it was in the Edwardian era. I like the fact that it first deals with the kidnapping of Canon Pennyfather who was at the right place at the wrong time. The relationship between Bess Sedgewick and Elvira Blake was kind of complex and unique to me. That Bess did not want to see her and her daughter thinks someone wants to kill her. I was totally surprised by the ending I did not even think the hotel was the headquarters of a major crime syndicate although in the various chapters there are mentions of robberies but I did not connect those with the hotel. In my opinion the murder kind of came too late in the book although it did help make the rest of the novel more exciting. I was surprised by who the murderer was and even who was involved in the crime syndicate business. Some of the characters I like were Chief Inspector Davy aka Father, Michael Gorman, Mr. Robinson, and the other two I like were kind of bad and reckless Bess Sedgewick and Ladislaus Malinowski. Good book, some twists, surprises, and one action-packed ending you would expect in action movies. Which of the characters do you like? Also as you read Christie's later works do you think she starts to lose her ingenuity and talent for creating suspense and her ability to surprise the reader. I would be interested in your response.
Hi Cameron:
ReplyDeleteI think Chief Inspector Davy has to be my favorite in this - he's large, fatherly, and sings bits from comic opera. He seems more interesting to me than most of Christie's police officers. I also liked Miss Gorringe and felt in many ways she was the real protective front of the hotel. I agree that the murder comes in too late in the novel for the reader to have any vested interest in it's solution. Yet, in another way, once you know the solution, you can see that that plot had been going on from almost the first chapter.
I do think that Christie does start to lose her abilities in the 60s - after having exhausted almost every possible murder plot, she isn't quite able to sustain attention just with characterization or other literary devices.
Did we get an explanation as to why Elvira thought someone was out to get her? Even though there were the chocolates and the tube station incident, I found it unsettling that no clear reasons were provided for its purpose to the plot. I suppose you could argue that they were lies to make her shooting story sound more plausible later on but then why would she have asked her lawyer about her death? Seems like too big of a loose end...
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