The Captive Reader

Had anyone given up hope that I was ever going to post a review again?  No, just me?  My reading blocked translated into a writing block, hence the numerous filler posts you’ve been feed over the past few weeks.  Thank you for not abandoning me in the meantime.  Happily, I am reading again, meaning that I have something to write about, starting with Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie. 

As the story begins, Luke Fitzwilliam finds himself in a train compartment with Miss Pinkerton.  Luke knows instinctively, cringingly, when he finds himself alone with Miss Pinkerton that his journey will not be as peaceful as he had hoped:  “Being a man of many aunts, he was fairly certain that the nice old lady in the corner did not propose to travel in silence to London” (p. 5).

Luke is returning to London after years spent in the Far East as a policeman.  Miss Pinkerton is going to Scotland Yard, convinced that a murderer is responsible for a number of recent deaths in her village of Wychwood and likely to strike again.  Luke dismisses Miss Pinkerton’s fears as those of an easily excited old lady.  However, when Luke hears that Miss Pinkerton was killed within hours of their meeting and then sees the announcement of yet another death in Wychwood, of the very gentleman that Miss Pinkerton had identified as the next victim, Luke sets off to investigate.  Armed with a policeman’s professional knowledge and a truly flimsy and suspicious back story, Luke descends on the village and, like many of Christie’s protagonists, wanders around casting suspicious glances at all the wrong villagers (and lustful ones at a particularly clever young lady who fingers the murderer long before Luke).  Clueless narrators – or ones who are very confident but have the wrong end of the stick completely – work wonderfully, particularly when they’re as sympathetic as Luke.    

It’s certainly not one of Christie’s best efforts; indeed, it’s not even particularly memorable.  It is, however, still good fun and a pleasant, cozy story to spend a few hours with one afternoon.  If nothing else, it entertained me with some excellent quips about aunts that seem very much like refugees from Miss Marple stories:

Every man should have aunts.  They illustrate the triumph of guesswork over logic.  It is reserved for aunts to know that Mr. A is a rogue because he looks like a dishonest butler they once had.  Other people say, reasonably enough, that a respectable man like Mr. A couldn’t be a crook.  The old ladies are right every time. (p. 204)

How strange that a book about murder can be so delightful and comforting.  Classic Agatha Christie, I suppose, to make the reader feel so safe and entertained even as the body count grows to rather alarming heights.  Murder is Easy only confirmed what I realised when reading The Moving Finger in the Spring: Christie is far wittier and intelligent that I had remembered and clearly deserving of more of my attention.  Perhaps she will finally help me conquer my prejudice against the mystery genre!