MY THOUGHTS:
Six months before this story starts, beautiful Rosemary Barton was celebrating her birthday with a select table of loved-ones when she dramatically collapsed and died. Cyanide was discovered in her champagne. The police verdict was suicide, since nobody had the apparent means of tampering with Rosemary's glass. What's more, a packet containing cyanide crystals was found in her handbag.
But now Rosemary's husband, George, has received two anonymous letters declaring that it was murder. He's determined to get everyone back around the same table at the hotel to set off a psychological trap and get to the bottom of it.
The other five guests are understandably uneasy to receive their invitations. Not only is George's proposal a bit creepy, but each knows deep down that he or she had a private reason for wanting vivacious, harmless Rosemary dead. Agatha Christie introduces each person's background tale of how they could benefit from Rosemary's death. They also reveal Rosemary herself to be an empty-headed seductress with the potential to seriously irritate people, depending on their personal triggers.
The premise that poor Rosemary invited the wrong circle of friends to her intimate birthday party is chilling. So is the fact that they are all 'nice' people. Christie suggests that maybe, given the perfect alignment of timing and hatred, every person is capable of murdering just one other person in their lives. Especially since in each case, their hatred or resentment of Rosemary is based on their own selfish agendas, for she herself was never essentially evil. 'A lovely creature with the brains of a hen,' according to her illicit lover.
So was it Ruth Lessing, George's immaculate secretary who would go above and beyond for her employer?
Or either Stephen or Lady Alexandra Farraday; the political whiz kid who Rosemary loved and his elegant, self-contained wife?
Or Anthony Browne, the clever young man with a vague job in some armaments firm, whose past will not necessarily bear scrutiny?
Or Iris Marle, Rosemary's younger sister who's just about to celebrate her 18th birthday, and who is next in line to inherit a family nest egg after Rosemary's death?
George and all the others get way more than they bargain for at his awkward reunion night, and it makes the crook's slippery trail even harder to follow. The brains behind solving this crime are Colonel Race and Inspector Kemp - with surprise help from one of the guests present on both occasions.
As always, I enjoy discovering wise Christie philosophy within the pages of her novels which isn't crime related. This time I zoomed in on this dialogue between Anthony and Iris, while they're talking about Stephen Farraday. Do you think he has a point?
Iris: He always seems to me rather pompous and stupid.
Anthony: He's not at all stupid. He's just one of the unhappy successes.
Iris: Unhappy?
Anthony: Most successes are unhappy. That's why they are successes. They have to reassure themselves about themselves by achieving something the world will notice.
Iris: What extraordinary ideas you have, Anthony.
Anthony: You'll find they're quite true if you only examine them. The happy people are failures because they're on such good terms with themselves that they don't give a damn. Like me. They are also usually agreeable to get on with - also like me.
It's a great read that kept me turning the pages and guessing. It may be one of my favourite Christie mysteries thus far, and only a few niggles keep me from giving it five stars. Everyone was so quick to assume suicide at the outset, but I can't believe it would ring true to them that Rosemary would choose such a disfiguring and 'uglifying' method in front of her friends and family, rather than the seclusion of her own bedroom. Also, surely some of the others would decline George's second invitation, even though it was ostensibly for Iris's eighteenth birthday. Come on, they all had a perfect right to play the, 'It's too close to home and distressing,' card without appearing at all suspicious. I find it a stretch of credibility that not one single person played it.
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