Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie ISBN-13: 9780553350371 Hardcover: 224 pages Publisher: Bantam Books Released: 1923, 1985

Source: Borrowed from my local library.

Book Description from Amazon:
An urgent cry for help brings Hercule Poirot to France. But he arrives too late to save his client, whose brutally stabbed body now lies facedown in a shallow grave on a golf course.

But why is the dead man wearing an overcoat that is too big for him? And for whom was the impassioned love letter in the pocket? Before Poirot can answer these questions, the case is turned upside down by the discovery of a second, identically murdered corpse.…


My Review:
Murder on the Links is a historical mystery featuring Hercule Poirot. Though written as a contemporary mystery, it's now a historical. Still, it contains enough detail that the historical references can be understood.

The mystery was clever and complex, but whodunit could be guessed from the clues. In fact, the critical evidence was repeated several times--the hard part was making sense of what the clues meant. It was fun that Poirot was competing against a Sherlock-Holmes-type local detective, and suspense was added when even Hastings made Poirot's life difficult near the end.

The characters were varied, interesting, and acted in realistic ways. Hastings seemed particularly stupid in this novel, but I think it's supposed to be one of the early Poirot novels so he hadn't had time to pick up how Poirot thinks yet. Hastings' tenancy to fall in love at first sight also came across as a silly to me, but I guess he is supposed to be fairly young in this novel.

There were no sex scenes. There was a minor amount of explicit bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this mystery.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


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