The Seven Dials Mystery, by Agatha Christie

The Book

    Welcome back to Chimneys and all of the crazy crime that goes on at this illustrious country home. Here we see Chimneys as it is four years after the events of The Secret of Chimneys, just before it's about to be turned back over to it's owner, Sir Caterham. Chimneys has been let by the Cootes, and Lady Coote is having one last house party while Sir Coote tries to get a bit of work done. At the party are a number of young people, presumably brought so that Sir Coote's young secretary, Mr. Rupert Bateman (AKA Pongo) would have some friends to hang out with while he's not at work. In the party are the lazy Jimmy Thesiger, the even lazier George Evans, and their buddies Ronny Deveraux and Bill Eversleigh. (Ah, dear Bill. I do hope he's gotten over Virginia Revel marrying Anthony Cade and becoming the Queen of Herzoslovakia.) There are a number of girls there that weekend. Helen and Nancy, who even Agatha Christie doesn't bother to differentiate and the incredibly subtle Socks.  When George Evans doesn't come downstairs one day until noon, the group of young people decide to play a prank on him and drive out to town to buy alarm clocks so he will be forced to wake up. They pull off the stunt, with Pongo depositing the clocks into the sleeping man's room. 

But the next day, at noon, instead of having a grumpy Evans on their hands, they have a man who has not yet awakened. Disappointed, they head upstairs to only to find out the efficient Chimneys butler has already ascertained that Evans is dead and has sent for a doctor and the police. Jimmy sneaks into the dead man's room, to find that instead of the 8 alarms clocks they had purchased, only seven are in there. And they are arranged on the mantle instead of on the floor as they should have been. The 8th was thrown out of the window. Evans was killed by an overdose of sleeping medication, which nobody really believed could be anything other than murder, no matter what the cops, especially Superintendent Battle, have to say.

From here the Caterhams take back over the house, and Lady Eileen Brent (AKA Bundle, Lord Caterham's oldest daughter and heir) gets mixed up in the mystery because Evans died in her room and she found the letter he was writing to his sister just before he died. She has a burning desire to find out what this mysterious Seven Dials Club is. Bundle's driving has not improved in the four years, and she almost runs over Ronny Deveraux, but he was shot and dies soon after, saying something about Seven Dials. 

Superintendent Battle shows up a couple of more time before we finally bring this thing to a close and Battle gets his man, and Bundle gets hers. Yay Bill Eversleigh, looks like he did get over Mrs. Cade, nee Revel. 

My Thoughts

I do not know what it is about this book or The Secret of Chimneys, but man are the difficult to read. I kept falling asleep in both of them. The plot is all over the place, the structure seems to be a bit off, but it's also kind of a charming read. I like Bundle, even if she can't drive a car. I like Bill Eversleigh, even if he is a bit lazy. I love that they have started calling George Lomax "Codders", and I love, love, love the prank the kids played in the beginning of the book. The mystery is a bit easy to solve, even for one of Christie's thrillers, so the plot twist should not come as a surprise. She's done this type of plot twist before, and to much better effect. While it's not the worst books she put out in this period as she is going through and getting her divorce, it's one of a trio of books that are definitely Christie being off of her game. The fact that her career survived three years of it is testament to both her genius and to the age in which she lived. I doubt a publisher would be this forgiving these days. 

How Much My Library Card Saved Me

    This is another in the leatherette editions that my library owns. It seems these titles are going to be a bit of hit and miss at this point. The Mystery of the Blue Train, my library did not own at all, and I had to import it. 

    Our corrector of record is back, and whoever it is, they have very helpfully explained in the front of the book that one should read The Secret of Chimneys first because several of the characters appeared there first. And while I absolutely do not condone writing in any way shape or form in a library book, I find it my secret little guilty pleasure to see these notes pop up in the books. This book, according the receipt saved me $15.00.

This Book                                    $15.00

This Summer                            $480.87