***100 Days of Summer Reading 2023***
Reading Prompt: Mystery with a seaside setting
Virtual 12 sided dice roll: 3
My regular monthly installment of Agatha Christie and this was one of the better ones. Christie didn't get much mileage out of Superintendent Battle, which is kind of a shame. Fewer Hercule Poirot books and more Superintendent Battle would have suited me down to the ground. I had to laugh when Battle referenced Poirot during this investigation, saying that the psychological aspect would have been right up his alley.
As per usual, Christie bamboozled me. My nose was pointed in exactly the wrong direction by some (now that I think more about it) rather obvious red herrings. I should know better by now than to be led astray, but 9 times out of 10 I am wrong!
I thought the inspiration to go back in time well before the murder and see how all the people were related to Gull's Point and how they came to assemble there was genius. The emphasis on the careful planning was designed both to conceal and reveal. Brilliant! It did the trick, too, distracting from the perpetrator nicely. And I know that courts of law aren't necessarily interested in motives, but I am. I think one of the appeals of the true crime genre is the sussing out of the reasoning behind the event.
Battle turns out to be a wily investigator, urging that they appear to concentrate on one suspect and carefully watch how the others react. Despite seeing his process putting clues together, he made some connections that I couldn't. I can see myself rereading this novel at some future point and admiring how the cake is mixed, baked, and decorated.
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