A chatty old lady on a train tells a retired policeman that someone in her village is getting away with murder; the next day, she is dead
Nobody believed her
Luke Fitzwilliam, just home from police work abroad, shares a train compartment with an elderly lady who is on her way to Scotland Yard. Someone in her village, she says, has killed several people, and she knows who will be next. Luke humours her, but the next day he reads that she has been killed in a road accident, and soon after, the person she named dies too. Curious and uneasy, he travels to the village of Wychwood under a false pretext.
Who will enjoy it
Readers who like village mysteries with a twisty solution, Christie fans exploring her standalone novels, and anyone who enjoys an amateur detective.
What you will get
A village mystery in which a retired policeman, posing as a writer, uncovers a series of deaths everyone else has dismissed as accidents.
Murder Is Easy Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Mystery & Thriller · Village murders · Retired policeman · Superintendent Battle
Length
272 pages · ≈ 8 h
More about this book
The opening is one of Christie's best: a seemingly harmless conversation on a train that turns out to be a warning. From there, Luke's investigation takes him through a gallery of village types, from the doctor and the solicitor to a pompous local newspaper owner and his clever, independent fiancée, Bridget Conway. Their prickly, witty relationship gives the book a pleasant romantic thread.
Christie excels at showing how easy it is to hide a crime among everyday accidents and illnesses. Every death in Wychwood has an innocent explanation, and the question of who could be behind them keeps the suspense high. The solution is well hidden and fair, and the final chapters build real tension.
Luke is a fairly conventional hero, and readers expecting Poirot or Miss Marple should note that Superintendent Battle only appears briefly at the end. Some attitudes of the period show through. It was once published in the United States as Easy to Kill, so check before buying twice. As a standalone puzzle, it holds up very well. About 272 pages in the William Morrow paperback.
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