Retired police officer and occasional sleuth Luke Fitzwilliam wasn’t thrilled to be stuck next to dotty old Miss Fullerton on the London-bound train. But at least she was amusing, regaling him with tall tales of "perfect murders" in the quaint village of Wychwood. When Miss Fullerton turns up dead, Luke becomes seriously worried and takes on the case. A visit to isolated Wychwood confirms his fears: There’s a dark and dangerous secret that is dispatching the locals. Actor Hugh Fraser gives a captivating reading of this elaborate, engaging whodunit.
Murder Is Easy
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'Suspense, mystery, romance and an agreeable touch of the macabre.' Guardian Contains some clever plotting and enough casting of suspicion to keep you guessing like mad.' Books 'One of Agatha Christie's best mystery novels, a story fascinating in its plot, clever and lively in its characters and brilliant in its technique.' New York Times
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About the Author
Agatha Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and became, quite simply, the best-selling novelist in history. Her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, written towards the end of the First World War, introduced us to Hercule Poirot, who was to become the most popular detective in crime fiction since Sherlock Holmes. She is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in the English language and another billion in 44 foreign languages. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 19 plays, and six novels under the name of Mary Westmacott.
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Agatha Christie was born in 1890 and created the detective Hercule Poirot in her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). She achieved wide popularity with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) and produced a total of eighty novels and short-story collections over six decades.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I hardly need speak about Agatha Christie, deservedly the best-selling mystery novel author of all time. Murder is Easy is one of her best novels, being typically easy to read, obviously contrived and yet filled with plot twists and misdirections. During the exposition of the plot the reader cannot help but be seduced by the unravelling of the mystery, and it all seems, indeed, a little too easy... but with a breathtaking twist in the tail everything is turned around more than once. In retrospect it seems so simple, and all the clues are there. And yet the reader is almost guaranteed not to guess the ending. The only thing to add is that this is one of the few Christies where the pleasure of detection and mystery is leavened with the tension of personal risk to the main characters. The final few chapters in particular took my breath away when I first read the book. Written in the 1930s and yet still as accessible today as it ever was, this is a book well worth reading for both the Christie fan and the generalist reader of detective fiction. Read it and see why Christie is the Queen of Crime.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Luke Fitzwilliam has just returned home to England after several years working in the East. As he settles into a train compartment on the way to London he strikes up a conversation with an elderly woman who reminds him of one of his aunts. She tells him a strange story of murders in her village, giving him details of the crimes and relating how she is on her way to Scotland Yard to try and stop the murderer before there is another death. Luke listens to her with half an ear and then forgets the incident after his arrival in London. He is reminded though when he sees that his traveling companion was killed in a street accident shortly after they parted company. He is further surprised to hear that the person named as the next victim has in fact died suddenly.
He decides to investigate further, travels to the village and begins become involved in the village life. While there Luke meets the usual village ensemble, the old maids, local doctor and family, local lord of the manor and his household and others. Luke begins to find certain disturbing aspects on the local scene that convince him that the outrageous stories he had been told just might be the truth after all.
This is a departure from Christie's usual work, there are no appearances by Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple however Sgt. Battle does make an appearance at the very end of the story. Luke Fitzwilliam is one of Dame Agatha's one appearance only heroes which is a pity. He and his romantic interest quite charming, it would be nice to meet them again.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Library Binding
Miss Lavinia Fullerton is a typical English spinster. In fact, she is very reminiscent of Miss Marple and the charming elderly ladies that inhabited the cozy villages of England in the time between the two World Wars. While travelling on a train to London, she chats with Luke Fitzwilliam, a young policeman, about all the murders that have been taking place in her village of Wychwood under Ashe. Her subsequent death in London traffic involves Luke in this cozy village mystery.
The novel is populated with the basic village characters: doctor, lawyer, vicar, several elderly ladies, a retired military man, and one precocious young boy. Luke will suspect just about all of them at one point or another in the story, but in a tense and thrilling ending, all is revealed.
This entertaining book became a 1982 made-for-tv movie starring Bill Bixby as Luke and Helen Hayes as Lavinia.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
"It's Very Easy to Kill, So Long As No One Suspects You..."
Though it's not the best of Christie, and is missing her two most famous detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, "Murder is Easy" somehow contrives to be one of my favourite... Read more
Published 3 months ago by R. M. Fisher
A VERY GOOD FAIR-PLAY PUZZLE WITH QUITE A BIT OF HUMOR
EASY TO KILL (1939; originally published in Great Britain as MURDER IS EASY) is a very cleverly written fair-play puzzle story with a couple of bonuses: a fairly good love story... Read more
Published 4 months ago by David R. Eastwood
Quite good (audiobook version)
The audiobook version of Murder is Easy (Amazon doesn't seem to separate books from audiobooks in their review section) is read by Hugh Frazier, who plays Captain Hastings in the... Read more
Published 6 months ago by M. Bulger
Badly written
The story could have been interesting, had it been written in a less childish manner. The characters have no life and the dialogues are just ridiculous.
Published 6 months ago by Rank
Entertaining enough, but not Dame Agatha's best effort
I thought this Agatha Christie book was a bit sub-par. I was pretty sure of the direction the investigation was going to take and of "whodunnit" quite a while before it was... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Joel E. Mitchell
Murder is Easy - Detection is Difficult!
SPOILER WARNING!!!
This is surely one of the greatest detective novels ever written and an unfairly underrated masterpiece of Christie's that can stand comparison with... Read more
This is surely one of the greatest detective novels ever written and an unfairly underrated masterpiece of Christie's that can stand comparison with... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Taranis
Lady Agatha fooled me again
Sigh. I was completely fooled until Chapter 22 (of 24). I should've gotten it in Chapter 19, being alerted by one detail, but then dismissed my suspicion. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Neal C. Reynolds
Murder is Easy provides multiple murders in a cosy English village of...
Murder is Easy. However, writing great murder mysteries is not! Dame Agatha Christie was at the top of her game writing this excellent novel in the scary year of 1939. Read more
Published 23 months ago by C. M Mills
You'll Figure Out Whodunnit, but It's a Great Read All the Same
It's easy to kill if no one suspects you, and in the situation Luke Fitzwilliam has wandered into, that seems to be the case. Read more
Published on October 18, 2009 by LH422
A creepy and compelling puzzle of a case!
In many ways Murder Is Easy reminded me of one of my favorite Christie novels, the Miss Marple outing The Moving Finger (Miss Marple Mysteries). Read more
Published on July 19, 2009 by Ruth Anderson
Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
England! England after many years! Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
hat paint, cough mixture Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Miss Waynflete, Lord Easterfield, Doctor Thomas, Miss Fullerton, Amy Gibbs, Major Horton, Doctor Humbleby, Tommy Pierce, Honoria Waynflete, Scotland Yard, Lavinia Fullerton, Wonky Pooh, Rose Humbleby, Bridget Conway, Miss Conway, Ashe Manor, Sir William, Derby Day, Superintendent Battle, Ashe Ridge, Jim Harvey, Luke Fitzwilliam, Mayang Straits, Miss Waynfiete, Seven Stars New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
England! England after many years! Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
hat paint, cough mixture Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Miss Waynflete, Lord Easterfield, Doctor Thomas, Miss Fullerton, Amy Gibbs, Major Horton, Doctor Humbleby, Tommy Pierce, Honoria Waynflete, Scotland Yard, Lavinia Fullerton, Wonky Pooh, Rose Humbleby, Bridget Conway, Miss Conway, Ashe Manor, Sir William, Derby Day, Superintendent Battle, Ashe Ridge, Jim Harvey, Luke Fitzwilliam, Mayang Straits, Miss Waynfiete, Seven Stars New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 3
books:
16
books
cite this book:
See all 16 books citing this book
- And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie in Front Matter
- Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie in Back Matter
- Hercule Poirot by Agatha Christie in Back Matter
- Forever England: Femininity, Literature and Conservatism Between the Wars by Alison Light on 5 pages
- on 4 pages
- Agatha Christie: A Reader's Companion by Vanessa Wagstaff on page 157, page 158, and page 159
- Everyman's Guide to the Mysteries of Agatha Christie by Bruce Pendergast in Front Matter, page 28, and page 117
- Sexuality and the Erotic in the Fiction of Joseph Conrad (Continuum Literary Studies) by Jeremy Hawthorn on page 50, and Back Matter
See all 16 books citing this book
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