Murder Is Easy (Agatha Christie Collection)
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Review
‘Suspense, mystery, romance and an agreeable touch of the macabre.’
Guardian
Contains some clever plotting and enough casting of suspicion to keep you guessing like mad.'
Books
'One of Agatha Christie's best mystery novels, a story fascinating in its plot, clever and lively in its characters and brilliant in its technique.'
New York Times
Review
'Suspense, mystery, romance and an agreeable touch of the macabre.' Guardian Contains some clever plotting and enough casting of suspicion to keep you guessing like mad.' Books 'One of Agatha Christie's best mystery novels, a story fascinating in its plot, clever and lively in its characters and brilliant in its technique.' New York Times
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I was surprised to find that this one isn't more popular on these pages. I thought it was very good, and slightly different to the normal English village murder mysteries that Dame Agatha wrote about. This one is quite quirky. There have been a number of inexplicable deaths in the village of Wychwood in recent times - people falling off bridges and ladders, swallowing poison, dying from an infected cut etc - and Luke, a policeman just back from a tour of duty in the Far East, decides to go undercover to investigate. I agree that Luke isn't a strong character, and either Poirot or Miss Marple would have been far better in this role, but even so, this is a darkly brooding little tale. At times Wychwood feels more like it should be a village in a John Wyndham or a Dennis Wheatley novel, with horrible cruelty lurking under civilised surfaces, and Satanic rites being practiced nearby. I personally got the culprit completely wrong, and was utterly convinced it was somebody else entirely right up until the final few pages! I thought the murderer was one of the author's most original and memorable ones I've read so far.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I hardly need speak about Agatha Christie, deservedly the best-selling mystery novel author of all time. Murder is Easy is one of her best novels, being typically easy to read, obviously contrived and yet filled with plot twists and misdirections. During the exposition of the plot the reader cannot help but be seduced by the unravelling of the mystery, and it all seems, indeed, a little too easy... but with a breathtaking twist in the tail everything is turned around more than once. In retrospect it seems so simple, and all the clues are there. And yet the reader is almost guaranteed not to guess the ending. The only thing to add is that this is one of the few Christies where the pleasure of detection and mystery is leavened with the tension of personal risk to the main characters. The final few chapters in particular took my breath away when I first read the book. Written in the 1930s and yet still as accessible today as it ever was, this is a book well worth reading for both the Christie fan and the generalist reader of detective fiction. Read it and see why Christie is the Queen of Crime.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Published in 1939, a few months before the cosy world of the English village was finally shattered, Christie here introduces us to Luke Fitzwilliam, an experienced police officer returning to England after a career in the Far East. After a string of several Poirot novels you sense she was wanting something fresh, someone fresh to write about.
Fitzwilliam has time and money on his hands - he's clearly in no hurry to find somewhere to live or an income to live on. Barely touched down on Blighty's shores, he makes the acquaintance of an old lady, the archetypal strangers on a train. She confides in him that she has uncovered a series of murders in her picturesque little village. He initially dismisses her as a confused old bird, but later has reason to believe she was on to something. He takes himself to the village and quickly establishes that there have, indeed, been a number of sudden deaths. It's a village which boasts two pubs, but only a handful of suspects (retired army officer, doctor, lawyer, antique dealer, and some other possibilities from the landed gentry and professional classes - well, you couldn't expect our hero to have to deal with the lower orders).
Fitzwilliam is not a Poirot. As a detective he is a bumbling fool. He is ludicrously old-fashioned and emotionally shallow in his relationship with women - he falls in love at the drop of a lock of hair, like a virginal adolescent, then seeks to win fair lady through bluster and the romantic gravitational pull of a detective launching into a compelling mystery ... enlisting the aid of a partner.
Red herrings abound, but in rather contrived fashion. Any reader looking to follow the detective skills of the hero will be left sitting in the sidings while the express train hurtles past. The story is plot driven - it relies a little heavily on coincidence: the characters are barely sketched (perhaps the most convincingly drawn character is a Persian cat). Superintendent Battle (who'd first appeared in "The Secret of Chimneys") makes a brief appearance, but the apprehension of the murderer requires luck rather than grey cells. You are left able to guess at the murderer, but rather through intuition and reading the writer's mind rather than following clues or unravelling a puzzle.
Entertaining, well-paced, but hardly a classic. You long for the return of the little Belgian.
Fitzwilliam has time and money on his hands - he's clearly in no hurry to find somewhere to live or an income to live on. Barely touched down on Blighty's shores, he makes the acquaintance of an old lady, the archetypal strangers on a train. She confides in him that she has uncovered a series of murders in her picturesque little village. He initially dismisses her as a confused old bird, but later has reason to believe she was on to something. He takes himself to the village and quickly establishes that there have, indeed, been a number of sudden deaths. It's a village which boasts two pubs, but only a handful of suspects (retired army officer, doctor, lawyer, antique dealer, and some other possibilities from the landed gentry and professional classes - well, you couldn't expect our hero to have to deal with the lower orders).
Fitzwilliam is not a Poirot. As a detective he is a bumbling fool. He is ludicrously old-fashioned and emotionally shallow in his relationship with women - he falls in love at the drop of a lock of hair, like a virginal adolescent, then seeks to win fair lady through bluster and the romantic gravitational pull of a detective launching into a compelling mystery ... enlisting the aid of a partner.
Red herrings abound, but in rather contrived fashion. Any reader looking to follow the detective skills of the hero will be left sitting in the sidings while the express train hurtles past. The story is plot driven - it relies a little heavily on coincidence: the characters are barely sketched (perhaps the most convincingly drawn character is a Persian cat). Superintendent Battle (who'd first appeared in "The Secret of Chimneys") makes a brief appearance, but the apprehension of the murderer requires luck rather than grey cells. You are left able to guess at the murderer, but rather through intuition and reading the writer's mind rather than following clues or unravelling a puzzle.
Entertaining, well-paced, but hardly a classic. You long for the return of the little Belgian.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Easy Read
I am a huge fan of Agatha Christie and I never tire of reading her books. Bought this in fascimilie edition for nostalgic reasons. Read more
Published 27 days ago by Mrs. A. L. Maddocks
Pass the bucket
I really like Christie's novels, but some are a bit too peppy and weak for my taste. Murder is Easy I found unbearably boring. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jack Heslop
Good reading
This is a good book and easy to read. It will keep you guessing until the end, just as the hero does, suspecting one character and then another. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Junius
Very enjoyable, but less gripping than some of her others
I am a big Agatha Christie fan - there is something in her writing that is hard to find in modern books, which often seem to involve distressing descriptions of people's traumatic... Read more
Published on 13 April 2010 by Jessica
Should have been a Miss Marple novel
During a train journey to London, Luke meets an old lady on her way to Scotland Yard to denounce a murder which is about to happen. Read more
Published on 5 July 2005 by Miguel M. Santos
Murder is Easy
This is a good standard murder mystery by Agatha Christie. It does not feature any of her famous investigators like Poirot or Miss Marple so if you are used to reading those ones,... Read more
Published on 21 July 2004 by Claire Bradley
Murder might be easy, but guessing whodunit isn't.
The possibility that murder is easy is the focus of this ingenious little novel. Ideas for writing murder mysteries certainly came easily to Agatha Christie during her long... Read more
Published on 19 Nov 2003 by John Austin
Murder with Romance
I enjoyed this book because it had some touches of the macabre. The dear Lavinia Pinkerton was excellent as was Lord Whitfield. I liked the dramatic finish
Published on 9 Jun 2000
This is fabulous !
This is the first Agatha Christie Novel that I read. After reading 'Murder is Easy', I became an Agatha Christie's Fan ! Read more
Published on 27 May 1999
Classic Christie
Murder is Easy, is a gripping tale and a classic piece of detective fiction in its own right. It was written in the 1930's so some of the attitudes and opinions of the main... Read more
Published on 27 April 1999
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