Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie: a Book Review

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

In Evil Under the Sun Poirot is on holiday in Devon staying in a seaside hotel – a seaside mystery instead of a country house mystery!

Here’s the blurb:

It was not unusual to find the beautiful bronzed body of the sun-loving Arlena Stuart stretched out on a beach, face down. Only, on this occasion, there was no sun! she had been strangled. Ever since Arlena’s arrival at the resort, Hercule Poirot had detected sexual tension in the seaside air. But could this apparent ‘crime of passion’ have been something more evil and premeditated altogether?

My thoughts:

It’s August, the sun is hot, people are enjoying themselves, swimming and sunbathing and yet Poirot remarks that the sight of the recumbent figures on the beach reminds him of the Morgue in Paris, ‘the bodies – arranged in slabs – like butcher’s meat!’  The other guests remark it’s an unlikely setting for crime but Poirot disagrees:

‘It is romantic, yes,’ agreed Hercule Poirot. ‘It is peaceful. The sun shines. The sea is blue. But you forget Miss Brewster, there is evil everywhere under the sun.’

And so it turns out, with the discovery of Arlena’s dead body. Arlena, who Major Barry describes as ‘a personification of evil’.

‘She’s the world’s first gold-digger. And a man-eater as well! If anything personable in trousers comes within a hundred yards of her, it’s fresh sport for Arlena!’

Her step-daughter, Linda hates her and wants to kill her, wishing she would die.

Arlena was strangled. Poirot  maintains that her murder has resulted from her character, and his investigations revolve around understanding exactly what type of person she was. The suspicion of guilt is cast over one person after another; either a man or a woman could have been strong enough to strangle Arlena and there are plenty of suspects. And even Poirot is puzzled because from the beginning it had seemed to him that one person was clearly indicated as the murderer but at the same time it seemed impossible for that person to have committed the crime.

Poirot describes the murder as a ‘very slick crime‘ and indeed it was perfectly planned and timed. At the end he explains at length how he collected together all the isolated significant facts and events to make a complete pattern to discover the identity of the murderer. Although I enjoyed this book I did think the explanation was too long and the characters  were a bit sketchy and sterotypical. It all seemed to be more of a puzzle solving exercise, than a captivating mystery.

Agatha Christie wrote Evil Under the Sun during 1938 and it was published in 1941, having first appeared as a serial in the USA at the end of 1940. I read it on my Kindle.

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 416 KB
  • Print Length: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Harper (14 Oct 2010)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B0046H95QS
  • Source: I bought it

Reading this book completes the What’s in a Name 4 challenge.

Saturday Snapshot

Published on by Margaret22 Comments

There was a loud bang the other day. I looked around the house but couldn’t find anything that had fallen down to explain the noise. Later I noticed that the front room window was looking rather dusty, and then I realised what the bang had been:

There are lots of wood pigeons and collared doves flying round our garden and it looks as though one had tried to fly through the window. It had certainly left an impression, probably seeing the reflection of trees in the window and thinking it could fly through. Fortunately there was no dead or injured bird anywhere to be seen!  We’d better get some stickers on the window!

See more Saturday Snapshots on Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.

Book Beginnings

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Today I finished reading Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates. It has taken me several weeks to read it and I fancy a complete change and a shorter book!

So, I’m thinking of reading No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe, which begins:

For three or four weeks Obi Okonkwo had been steeling himself against this moment. And when he walked into the dock that morning he thought he was fully prepared. He wore a smart palm-beach suit and appeared unruffled and indifferent. The proceeding seemed to be of little interest to him. Except for one brief moment at the very beginning when one of the counsel had got into trouble with the judge. (page 1)

This is my copy which I bought several years ago from a second-hand bookshop somewhere, after reading its predecessor Things Fall Apart, whose hero was Obi’s grandfather. I thought Things Fall Apart was an amazing book and one that had made a great impression on me, so why haven’t I read No Longer at Ease before now?

From the blurb on the back cover I see that Obi has returned to Nigeria from studying in England. He is a civil servant with a respectable job and a fiancée, but despite the expectations of his family and tribe he falls victim to the corruption of Lagos. It promises to be a study of the cultural change in Nigeria during the 1950s.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Katy, at ‘˜A Few More Pages’.

The Hanging Wood by Martin Edwards

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

The Hanging Wood (Lake District Mysteries 5)The Hanging Wood is another great book from Martin Edwards. It’s his 5th Lake District Mystery, and although each one can be read as a stand-alone, I think it’s good to read them in order of publication. Full details of his books are on Martin’s website.

Historian Daniel Kind is carrying out research at St Herbert’s Residential Library where Orla Payne works. She is obsessed by the disappearance of her brother Callum,  twenty years earlier when he was a teenager and she was a child of seven. When her uncle was found dead in Hanging Wood, the police assumed he had committed suicide after killing Callum, even though his body was never found. Daniel encourages Orla to speak to DCI Hannah Scarlet, who heads the Cold Case Review Team at Cumbria Constabulary about her brother’s disappearance. However, a drunken Orla fails to convince Hannah to reopen the case and it is only after Orla’s death that the police decide to review Callum’s disappearance. As Hannah tries to discover what happened to Callum, she begins to think their deaths are connected and were not accidental or suicide.

I really enjoyed this book, with its interesting characters and atmospheric Lake District setting. The Hanging Wood itself with its towering wych elms, rowan, ash and oak trees, and old paths obscured by grass, heather and brambles is not a pleasant place:

The sun was barely visible through the canopy of leaves and there was an earthy primitive smell in the air. Even on a day like this, the Hanging Wood had the odour of decay. Purple foxgloves supplied a scattering of colour, but for Hannah, the flowers conjured up sinister memories. They were poisonous, and when she was small, a thoughtless uncle warned her that nibbling the stems in his garden would kill her. She’d spent the rest of the day in a state of terror. She remembered his name for foxgloves: dead man’s bells. (location 2225)

The case is intriguing and cleverly constructed. I thought I’d worked it out and I did, but only after several red herrings threw me off track for a while. I like the mix of cold and new cases, the sense of history and the characterisation – a most satisfying read.

I also like the sub-plot of Hannah and Daniel’s relationship. Both of them are now living on their own, but Marc is still trying to patch things up with Hannah and Hannah is just not sure. I think for this strand of the novels it really does help to read the books in sequence.

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 518 KB
  • Print Length: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Allison & Busby (25 July 2011)
  • Sold by: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l.
  • Language English
  • ASIN: B005C1AMFU
  • Source: I bought it

ABC Wednesday – F is for …

Published on by Margaret12 Comments

… one of my favourite flowers:

Fuchsia

Photos taken in my former garden.

A couple of commenters have asked is this a perennial. It’s a herbaceous perennial that flowers in the spring and summer and dies back in the winter. My next door neighbour grew them in profusion and I grew this one in our garden from a cutting off one of her plants.

An ABC Wednesday post for the letter F.

Agatha Christie Blog Carnival

Published on by Margaret1 Comment

The August edition of the Agatha Christie Blog Carnival is now posted at http://acrccarnival.blogspot.com/2011/08/acrc-carnival-2011-7-august-24-2011.html

Next month we will celebrate Agatha Christie’s 121st birthday on September 15. In 2010 we celebrated the 120th anniversary of Agatha Christie’s birthday on September 15 with a month long blog tour. This year’s celebrations will be a bit lower key and will give participants the opportunity to put a celebratory post up on their own blog, and then link to it on the Carnival site through a special post on September 15.