Quick Review

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


As late Christie goes, this one is well neigh perfect; funnier than ever, wicked snotty about various bounders, tennis pros and the like, and hilariously condescending to the wrong sort of girls, poor things. Plus, there's exactly the right measure of Marple in this one: neither too much -- when she can tell one village scandal too many and too apt -- nor too little -- when the reader may forget the old girl being on the scene at all.

Really don't much care for the mystery of it all anymore, when I read this sort of thing nowadays. Can't say, but I'd guess Christie wasn't too bothered about plausibility either by the time she wrote this one. Christie specially, I read now, or reread, for the fun of the setting, mean little character types, the gibes and jokes. Dame Agatha can be damned funny, and quite knowing, even if not always aware of modern realities, even then. There simply is no Marple without little maids, all in a row. Here there are good murders and bad, and a rather idiotic twist as to how, shall we say, something got misplaced, but by the time all has been revealed, I could not much care, and a good time's been had, if not by all exactly, then certainly by me.

Perfectly respectable entertainment, I must say.



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