Evil Under the Sun
Agatha Christie
Harper. First published 1941.
World War II is not even mentioned. But that is just carping. One doesn't read AG for political comment. The murder takes place at the beach of a seaside resort hotel, situated on an island off the coast of Devon in England (where else?). Poirot is on hand and after his usual comments and murmurs to misdirect the reader, and after many of the usual AG memes have been trotted out, the surprise murderer is revealed. AG does not give the reader a fair chance, but nowadays I just 'meta-read' her, trying to guess how she'd take the story. The obvious red herrings can be easily ruled out. But despite this, trying to figure out 'the most unlikely suspect' and fixing on him/her/them is not always easy. In this case I failed. The misdirection was well done. In some of her books, there is a character or two one can feel sympathetic towards, and even like. There is an attempt to introduce a couple of such here, butthe portraits are not very well drawn. The book is average Agatha Christie. Good for complete, self-indulgent escape, like watching an average soap on TV.
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