The Mirror Crack'd & Peril at End House (book reviews)

     Agatha Christie The Mirror Crack’d (1962) This is one of the best Miss Marple stories. A woman dies suddenly during a reception at the recently renovated Gossington Hall (where the body had been found in the library many years before). The psychology of the crime baffles the police. Who would want to murder this harmless busybody? As so often happens in an Agatha Christie, the past holds the vital clue. Twenty years before, the victim had hauled herself from her sickbed in order to meet her idol, a film star. Miss Marple, physically frail and mentally a little slower than she used to be, as always is able to empathise with both the murderer and the victim, and by doing so to understand both why and how the woman was murdered. The plotting is beautifully done, everything fits. There are a few nicely done digressions, which serve to show Miss Marple’s acumen, and also, I suspect, to express Christie’s distaste for the effects of population growth and modernisation. The characterisation is more subtle and complex than in the early novels, which adds to the charm of this book. ***½

     Agatha Christie Peril at End House (1932) One of the best Poirots: the murderer actually enlists Poirot in the hunt for her supposed attacker. I knew the story before I reread this novel, but that increased the pleasure: I could see how artfully Christie places red herrings amongst the genuine clues in Poirot’s path. I think she enjoyed showing how Poirot’s vanity misleads him. If he weren’t so sure of his perspicacity, he wouldn’t accept the story fabricated for him. The murderer is clever enough to build the story through apparently trivial details. The significance of apparent trivialities is Poirot’s forte, and his attention to them is therefore also his weakness. I thoroughly enjoyed rereading this book ***½