The murder on the links (by Agatha Christie)

(Amazon UK link)

We have a large collection of Agatha Christie novels, and there are still some which I have not previously read. Gradually I’m working my way through them, and have just finished ‘The murder on the links’. This is one of the earlier novels involving not just the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, but his friend (and scribe) Arthur Hastings. This book is written from the point of view of the latter.

There is a prologue involving Hastings on the train, meeting a rather attractive girl who is worried about her sister. This short chapter is somewhat cryptic, and its significance is not clear until much later in the book.

The real story starts when Poirot, recently retired from the police force and hoping for some interesting private work, receives a letter from a French millionaire. The letter states that M Renauld is worried about some unknown threat, and has a secret which cannot be revealed in writing. So he asks that Poirot join him as soon as possible…

So Poirot and Hastings make their way to France, and quickly become embroiled in a complicated murder case which seems, at first, to baffle even the brilliant detective. They are slightly hampered by the French police force, and by various involved people who are clearly not telling the entire truth…

The front cover (and, indeed, the book title) are slightly misleading; the cover depicts legs in golfing socks with a golf club and ball lying at the side of what is evidently a body. While there is indeed mention of a golf course, it is not yet complete, and the person concerned has not been playing golf, nor is he dressed in clothes of this kind. Perhaps the illustrator did not read the book.

As with most of Christie’s books, the plot is cleverly developed, with clues and red herrings nicely scattered around to confuse both the local police and the reader of the book. I did in fact grasp the importance of some of the things that were evident to Poirot (though not to the sometimes clueless Hastings). I didn’t guess the outcome - and it came in several parts - and am not sure I could have done.

There’s an underlying low-key romance, too, which I was not expecting - it makes a pleasant extra thread to the story. The characterisation, as with most of this author’s books, are not all that great; she tended to work in caricatures or exaggeration rather than creating truly sympathetic people. It doesn’t particularly matter, as it’s the plot and investigation which are most important, but even a day after finishing it I find that I have forgotten almost all the names already.

Pleasant enough light crime fiction, with nothing gory - or even disturbing, if one accepts that there will be dead bodies at some point in a story of this nature. On the whole I thought it an enjoyable diversion.

Available in Kindle form as well as a variety of print editions, and regularly found second-hand.

Review by Sue F copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews