The Sittaford Mystery

 

by Agatha Christie ( read by Hugh Fraser) c. 1931

An "Agatha Christie Centenary Celebration" Read

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grumpy old men

At last, perhaps, Christie has found her stride.

Lots of interesting interpersonal politics in this one. The victim is a rich, antisocial bachelor (Asperger's perhaps?), living in a very small community of shut-ins and social misfits near Dartmoor (what a setting!). The sleuth is a very capable woman who needs to be needed but at the same time is a user of people, especially men.  The culprit... well let's not go there and spoil the book -- although I will say that I would have liked to have known more about the murderer.

I liked the story very much. The characters were interesting and made me think (which really doesn't happen as often these days). Why so many bachelors and why so much misogyny among them? Why are these guys hiding themselves on the moor? Is this more post-war damage? Are they not able to face a world that is changing so rapidly? I won't even go down the homosexual road, because I think that it is much more of a current concern that it was when the book was written. Things were different in the 1930s and it is unfair to judge by today's standards. I have decided that one learn a lot more about social history, what things were like in those days, by accepting that things were different rather than by interpreting things through the narrow lens of todays standards. How else do we know how far we have come, if we don't know where we started?

If we are ranking the reads so far, this one is at the top of the list along with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Murder at the Vicarage. It is so clear that she is in her element when she writes about country villages and the murderers who live there -- and avoids world conspiracy and megalomania.

Three and three-quarters stars

Halloween Bingo: Genre: Mystery, Amateur Sleuth, Lethal Games, Vintage Mystery, Country House Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Murder Most Foul, Supernatural(?), When Mother Nature Strikes (?)