Book #111 of 2023:
A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie (Miss Marple #10)
I always find it somewhat absurd when one of author Agatha Christie’s detective characters simply happens to stumble over a murder, but this premise has to be in the running for among her most ludicrous. Whilst on vacation, Miss Marple talks to another traveler who mentions having a photograph someone gave him of a likely serial wife-killer: a man who twice, under two different names, had a spouse supposedly attempt suicide and then soon afterward die for real. The person who gifted him the snapshot suspected but could not prove foul play, and he’s just kept it in his wallet as a fun story to share ever since. Upon this particular telling, he goes pale right as he’s about to pull it out to show the old lady, with the implication being that he’s suddenly recognized the murderer nearby. But there are several other men in the vicinity, so even after the chatty fellow himself is shortly killed, she can’t be sure who silenced him — only that presumably, the killer is once again planning to strike down his current partner and didn’t want anyone around who could identify his pattern.
It’s all as convoluted as it sounds, even before getting into the various suspects and their marital relations, and the text is peppered with all sorts of racist characterizations about the local staff at the Caribbean resort. I still like Marple herself as a protagonist, and she’s joined in her sleuthing for part of this novel by an even more elderly gentleman who’s the undisputed cantankerous bright spot of the affair. But overall, I can’t say that it’s one of the writer’s finest mysteries.
★★☆☆☆
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