Customer Reviews

The Murder on the Links (The Christie Collection)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first part of the text is fine, but then the conversion program missed an end italics and the bulk of the book is in italic. Very annoying and hard to read.

Of course I love anything Agatha Christie, so I purchased this book for my Kindle. There were a lot of typos. It was very irritating because so many of them were simple typos that would have been corrected had the book been prof read before hand. It was like reading a high school english paper. I hope the rest of my Kindle books are not like this. It seemed tacky and unprofessional.

The second Hercule Poirot mystery, The Murder on the Links, by Agatha Christie is a good example of the method of its detective and his little grey cells. The cast of charaters is small and there are some wonderfully complex twists but the main pleasure to be derived from this book is setting up Poirot in counterpoint to a more "modern" detective who uses less of a psychological approach and more of the blood-hound method examing the minutiae of the scene and following the scent. Hercule Poirot would definately not be a avid "CSI" watcher. The story also contains many romantic elements, another popular genre used by the author, that generally work better here than in other of her books. A good mystery, if not a Christie classic.

This is my second Agatha Christie book and I thought it was pretty good. I liked that just when you think you have it all figured out you realize you don't. That's the beauty of quality mystery writers as opposed to your dime a dozen writers you find in the grocery store aisle. I don't think this was the best book I read, but I felt the time I spent reading it was thoroughly well spent.

Oh man! This was absolutely spellbinding! Christie's gift is absolutely daunting! This novel never lets you off the hook for one second! It was after reading this that I've stopped reading mysteries written by any other writer. She's in a class all by herself.

I would NOT recommend this version of the book. The actual story is excellent Christie, but this version has a lot of errors and most of the book ended up italicised-- very hard on the eyes. Definitely buy the book-- just not this version.

In this, Agatha Christie's third novel and Hercule Poirot's second appearance (after The Mysterious Affair at Styles), the author and her detective continue to delight and dizzy. Poirot and Hastings travel to France to investigate a murder and we think we've reached the bottom of it...about five times. I'd never have guessed the actual solution, but watching Poirot at work and Hastings being wowed by the ladies and not as quick on the case (he's the reader - i.e., me or you - in the novel, the one we can relate to!) was the real pleasure anyway. We get the added treat of a brief ethical dilemma: to shield a loved one at what cost to myself? and what cost to a third party? Rapidly resolved by the marvelous, fastidious Poirot.

It's not The Murder of Roger Ackroyd nor even probably Peril at End House, but I thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

This book made me flash on the great Neil Simon comedy, "Murder By Death." A madman assembles the world's greatest fictional detectives, including a fellow named Hercule Perrier, and laces into them about how their books "tricked and fooled" readers for years.

"You've tortured us all with surprise endings that made no sense. You've introduced characters in the last five pages that were never in the book before!"

Christie was just starting on her amazing run of mystery-novel success with this, her third novel and second featuring Hercule Poirot, her best-known creation. Published in 1923, it features Poirot as a kind of thin Sherlock Holmes manque with a Watson-esque stuffy Brit companion named Hastings and a snooty Paris police detective Poirot shows up at every turn. While the murder under investigation offers numerous clues, red herrings, and sudden plot twists, the only thing apparently keeping Poirot from wrapping things up sooner is his complicity with Christie to stretch her story out to novel length.

Coincidence is a dangerous device to introduce to any book. Here it is done thrice, first when Hastings meets a girl on a train en route to meeting Poirot in London who will later turn out to be no small player in the murder case, though it occurs in a small French village many miles away.

Second, we learn how two conspirators who fell out and changed their identities unknowingly found themselves neighbors in this same village.

Finally, a fellow happens to have a heart attack that furnishes a couple with a dead body they have immediate need for without the guilt of shedding blood.

And there are even identical twins involved! Now I know where the "Knight Rider" people got their ideas, though at least they had the better sense to wink at the audience about their audacity.

Dialogue that creaks with age, too: "I've got you - and my wrists are like steel!"

The title of the book might as well be "The Murder By the Garden Shed" for all it has to do with golf. Except for some engaging banter between Poirot and Hastings, it lacks ambiance of any kind, and while a serviceable whodunit, it seems more disposed to keep readers guessing than give them something sensible to chew on when it's all over. Stock figures twitter and scowl, while Hastings, as Mark Winger noted in a fine review here, acts nonsensically to protect an attractive but dubious woman in a subplot whose resolution is the story's weakest moment.

Obviously, the author did better work later on, and maybe this is a wrong place to start reading Christie. It's easy constructing a mystery if you let everyone in it act the idiot except the character who figures it all out. The trick Christie developed later on was making the actors in the story alive and intelligent, and still twisting things to the reader's satisfaction. Here she doesn't, though. Let's call it a mulligan and move on.

This is a really great book of Agatha Christie. I just hate the many spelling errors in the kindle edition. I don't feel like spending any more money on Agatha Christie kindle books. They are all like this.

Though I'm far from having read every single one of Agatha Christie's novels, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that "Murder on the Links" is one of her best, right up there with Murder on the Orient Express and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Possibly the only reason that it's not as famous as those books is that it's let down by its rather generic title (in actuality, the story has very little to do with golf). Likewise, this was only the second Poirot-and-Hastings mystery after Mysterious Affair at Styles - and despite my enthusiasm for the novel, it's clear that Christie was still ironing out some of the kinks in her writing style.

As with many Poirot mysteries, it is told in first-person narrative by his companion Hastings, who at the start of the novel is amused to find that Poirot is bored without a case to work on - and somewhat distracted by a brief encounter on the train with a lovely young woman who jokingly calls herself "Cinderella". But this changes when Poirot opens a letter from Paul Renauld in Calais, a man who begs for his assistance at any price. Poirot and Hastings at once cross the channel to France, only to find on their arrival that Monsieur Renauld has already been murdered.

The circumstances of the death are remarkable: Renauld was found on the golf course, dressed in only his underwear and an overcoat, lying face downwards in an open grave. His wife was discovered in her bedroom that morning by a maid, bound hand and foot, and insisting that two men broke into their bedroom and abducted her husband. Faced with a rival detective in the shape of the antagonistic Girauld, Poirot begins to make his inquiries.

There are plenty of clues and suspects to go around: neighbours, servants, family members, but just when the relatively straightforward case seems to be coming to a close, another puzzle will crop up that sets Poirot back a few notches: blackmail, love affairs, stolen identities, murder - poor Hastings is left completely baffled. As always, Poirot's methods are just as mysterious as the situation itself as he remarks on obscure clues without explaining their relevance, much to the eternal frustration of Hastings.

But this time, Hasting has other things to distract him, such as the reappearance of "Cinderella" and a rather touching love story of his own. Christie's attempts at romance almost always seem rushed and contrived, and I suppose there's no real difference here, yet somehow hapless Hasting's growing fascination for "the girl" (as he often calls her) hits just the right note of sincerity. I must admit, I was getting a little choked up by the final denouncement, and the ethical dilemma that Hasting faces in regards to his newfound love brings an added depth and poignancy to the proceedings.

Every time you think everything is laid bare, Christie has another trick up her sleeve to remind you just how much cleverer she is than you! I was completely dumbfounded throughout, and as such, "Murder on the Links" is one of her most rewarding reads. To say much more would be to give away a wonderfully twisty-mystery that really deserves a "cold reading". Don't read too many other reviews, you might be in danger of learning too much!