MY THOUGHTS:
When Miss Jane Marple is offered a free holiday by her nephew Raymond and his wife, she chooses a nostalgic week at Bertram's Hotel in the heart of London. She'd stayed there once as a 14-year-old and longs to see how the place has dated. To Miss Marple's astonishment, nothing much has changed. She finds the current Bertram's Hotel of the 1950s is like stepping straight back into an Edwardian time warp.
Guests are thoroughly looked after, with Henry the butler presiding over a wonderful high tea with signature muffins. The menu includes old-time treats such as beef steak pudding and seed cake. Elderly clientele are offered reduced rates simply because the management believes they add to the ambience just by sitting around in the lavish foyer. But Miss Marple starts to suspect something's a bit fishy beneath that stately roof.
The senior Chief Inspector Fred Davy is on Miss Marple's wavelength. Bertram's seems to be the scene of so many red herrings, he can't help wondering if they have some sinister significance after all. Could the grand old hotel possibly be the front for some shady business?
Other guests spark curiosity. Why is Bess Sedgwick, the media magnet with a history of several husbands, staying there? Is the sneaky flaxen-haired teenager, Elvira Blake, her estranged daughter? Why is Ladislaus Malinowski, the celebrated Grand Prix driver, hanging around? Mysteries come to a head when muddle-headed Canon Pennyfather, an ecclesiastical academic, goes missing.
This novel seems to be Agatha Christie's homage to old age. Having so recently read The Secret Adversary, featuring the youthful vitality of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, this novel swings to the other end of the spectrum. Its heroes are Miss Marple, who never starts her morning knitting, because her stiff and rheumatic fingers need a chance to limber up; and Chief Inspector Davy, a rotund and bovine gent who's regarded by younger cops as deadwood to be cleared away. There is also the dreamy and doddery Canon Pennyfather, who I imagined to be at least 85 but is actually 63! People used to be considered elderly far younger in the mid 20th century.
Miss Marple considers how the illusion of making time stand still must cost Bertram's management a small fortune, since it never really does. She decides that people shouldn't ever wish to turn back time, since the essence of life is always forward moving. 'Life is really a one-way street, isn't it?' Although she's right in some ways, I don't entirely agree. There is always a place and time for nostalgia, the study of history and learning from mistakes. I probably wouldn't even be reading through the Agatha Christie mysteries at all if I didn't love that sort of backward glance.
Overall, I wasn't wowed by this mystery. The murder occurs fairly late in the story, which gives the earlier two thirds a bit of a rambling effect. Revelations, when they come, are underwhelming. Although the story is descriptive, historical, and quite interesting, it's not what I really expect when I crack open an Agatha Christie novel. So thumbs up for the setting, but not so much for the plot.
After all that goes down at Bertram's Hotel, it must surely have to close its doors, so bad luck for anybody in that fictional version of London who would like to sample those fantastic muffins.
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