Customer Reviews

The Boomerang Clue

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This is one of Christie's delightful books which later came on TV as the popular 'Why didn't they ask Evans?' It features the amateur detectives Bobby and Frankie, the latter known to the world as the most unlikely Lady Francis Derwent. She's the daughter of an earl, and this rather fortunate circumstance gets the lady an entry into houses where the more plebian Bobby can enter only as a chaffeur.

'Why didn't they ask Evans?' A handsome stranger with a photo of a hauntingly beautiful girl in his pocket, falls off a cliffside and dies with these rather mysterious words even as Bobby stands guard over him while his friend goes for help. The woman who turns up as the original of that photo, a heavily made-up, rather coarse woman, makes Bobby wonder at the cruelty of age that can destroy such beauty, till he realises that this is a different woman and that the photo has been changed. Things begin happening soon after that. An attempt on Bobby's life makes the gutsy, thirsting for-excitement Frankie suspicious and together they decide to get to the bottom of this mystery. By staging a mock-accident themselves, Frankie tries to get "a line on" the main culprit only to find herself succumbing to the charm of this young man who soon becomes more of a friend than enemy. When Bobby suddenly comes upon the original of the photograph in the grounds of an asylum, things start getting real warm. Written with the usual Christie elan, The Boomerang Clue has twists and turns on almost every page and keeps you hooked till the perplexing riddle is solved, which is probably not saying very much, since most Christies are unutdownable anyway. A very satisfying read, with more than one murder, and an ambience that threatens many more. Despite the crime and the suspense, the plucky humour of Frankie, though often at Bobby's expense, keeps the novel from getting too dark.

This was my first Agatha Christie novel! I loved it! I have always liked English literature, films, humor and tv. My usual read is much deeper, so I found this to be a wonderful reprieve from my usual fare. I found there was never a lull in the story, A quick page turner and quite the surprise ending. I will definitely look forward to reading another AC mystery soon!

I picked this book up for 50 cents at a local library sale, simply because it was written by Agatha Christie. Then it sat on the shelf for a few years. I finally decided to read it when I was looking for something short and light...little did I know I'd stumbled into one of those time-traps that runs around disguised as a book.

The characters immediately drew me in. The poor Bobby who still lives at home and is unsure what to do with his life. The rich Lady Frances Derwent, dissatisfied with her privelaged life. The friendship and (extremely) subtle romance between these two characters really appealed to me.

The story itself is well-written, and will certainly leave you guessing until the end. Overall, however, it's not not quite one of those mysteries in which "clues" are scattered throughout the story and the reader can use them to figure out who did it. Instead, we get "clues" in the form of people from the past mentioned off-handedly, whose actions (which of course are impossible for the reader to know) actually played a very important role in the overall "mystery". It would be absolutely impossible for any reader to figure out the meaning behind the phrase, "Why didn't they ask Evans?" before Frankie and Bobby themselves do.

But overall, I thought it was a very entertaining, well-written story. It has its share of red herrings, and it's fun to guess "who did it", even if the only possible way for you to get it right is by chance. I was completely sucked into it.

When Sipram, from Calcutta, wrote that "'This is one of Christie's delightful books which later came on TV as the popular 'Why didn't they ask Evans?' " he or she does not know that the original title is "Why didn't they ask Evans?", and that it was printed in England in 1934, and that the name of this book for the american edition of this book is "The boomerang clue". It's been translated into Spanish as "Trayectoria de Boomerang". I've read it in Spanish, and it's absolutely marvelous.

This is the second Agatha Christie book that I have read and I really enjoyed it. The sleuths were smart and engaging. The mystery kept taking new twists. It was very good. I liked this much more than the first Christie I read, so I will definitely read more.