Talk Back

[edting]

I pulled this out of my ebay mystery book box. It’s titled “Murder is Easy” but is also known as “Easy To Kill.” Interestingly, both versions are in my carton of books.

There is a blandness about these Agatha Christie books. All of them. It’s almost as if she’s making an effort to keep the book from getting too interesting. The characters are bland, the plot is bland, and the writing is slow and thick. Despite having written 80+ books, I don’t think writing came naturally to Agatha Christie. The eye goes not glide easily across the page. As a result, her books seem much longer than their modest 150-250 page lengths.

If you’re going to read an Agatha Christie book, your best bet is to stick with one of the early works (this one, written in 1938, is of them). In general, the earlier the better. There was a drastic decline in quality after the war, as if she’s writing on autopilot.

[jeffp]

I see Doug has given you the new avatar I should have given you a couple of books back. My bad, ed.
--jeffp