I recommend The Clocks to all fans of the murder mystery novel and to those of us grateful that Agatha Christie got into print and stayed there!

It is only a short time since I read my previous umpteenth Agatha Christie book and it won't be long before I'm back, I'm sure.

Even though the style is rather twee these days, there is no doubt that it kept me spellbound. I don't say this lightly: I realised about half of the way through the book that we hadn't seen a huge amount of action but I was reading and happy to carry on reading. Although there is blood and gore in a murder by stabbing, as was the primary event in this book, it doesn't dominate the story in an Agatha Christie book. There is no Hollywood style overkill (no pun intended) here.

The detectives are unassuming people. The other characters are often unassuming people. Even Hercule Poirot is unassuming; and he is the centre of this story by many measures, although he didn't appear in this story until it was almost half way through.

Of course, it is impossible to beat Poirot to the chase, as it is impossible to beat Miss Marple to the chase. I was determined, by the way, to pay attention and get there first this time; but of course I didn't. It's not possible! There are many red herrings in these books, together with information that the reader just cannot get to. Christie made her career out of red herrings and information underload; and we thrive on it don't we?: otherwise a murder mystery would simply become something like: man gets murdered, someone investigates the murder, the murderer is found. No need for Poirot, no need for Marple, no need to read the book.

.

25 August 2001