In my year of reading dangerously™, I’ve become immersed in the world of crime stories. For the 11th in this series, I returned to where I began: with the best-selling novelist of all time.

The Murder on the Links (1923) by Agatha Christie begins with the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot rushing off to northern France. He has received an urgent request from a client, Paul Renauld, who fears his life may be in danger. Unfortunately, by the time Poirot arrives the local police have found Renauld stabbed to death, lying in a shallow grave on a golf course, wearing only an overcoat and his underwear. His wife, Eloise Renauld, claims masked men broke into the villa, tied her up, and took her husband away with them. This is a curious turn of events, made even stranger when a short while later another well-dressed man is found on the estate murdered in an identical way.

A mother and daughter — the younger being a “girl with troubled eyes” — live next door, and Poirot’s investigations uncover the fact that the mother has received several large payments into her bank account from Renauld in recent months. Strange as it all seems, Poirot cannot shake the thought that he’s heard of a similar crime before. As he works to unravel the mystery, he also has to contend with Monsieur Giraud of the Paris Sûreté. The “famous Giraud” — at least in his own mind — leads the police investigation and resents Poirot’s involvement.

As is true with many of Christie’s novels, characters in The Murder on the Links are not always who they seem to be. In the midst of the investigation, Poirot takes a quick visit home to London to answer the question about his nagging suspicion that he’s seen this before. There he finds his answer, although it takes some trickery by Eloise Renauld to uncover the identity of the real murderer.

The story is narrated by Captain Arthur Hastings, Poirot’s assistant. Hastings is quick to jump to conclusions, which gives Poirot many opportunities for teaching moments with his young protege. The book also has an interesting subplot, in that Hastings falls in love, apparently a development “greatly desired on Agatha’s part . . . parceling off Hastings to wedded bliss in the Argentine.”

During this year of reading crime novels, I’ve also taken to watching the British television adaptation of the Poirot stories: Agatha Christie’s Poirot. After finishing this book, I went back to rewatch The Murder on the Links episode to get a sense for how much changed in the adaptation. While the basic plot of the novel was retained, the setting in France was different and a number of characters were either dropped or had their stories revised. The television version tidies it all up, while Christie’s original made for a more complex story where not all of those in on the murder plot receive their justice. Christie has created just the right mixture of intrigue to allow Hercule Poirot to “put together the strange pieces of a puzzle that stretched halfway around the globe and into the most secret and sinister places of the human mind.”

More to come . . .

DJB

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To see reviews of the other books in my year of reading dangerously (i.e., mystery novels and true-life crime stories), click here for 

• January, 
• February, 
• March, 
• April, 
• May, 
• June, 
• July,
• August,
• September,
• October

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The Weekly Reader links to the works of other writers I’ve enjoyed. I hope you find something that makes you laugh, think, or cry. 

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Photo of French golf course by Vikor Kiryanov on Unsplash.