Sleeping Murder by
Agatha Christie
pbk out September 02
(HarperCollins)
at £5.99
Like 'Curtain', this book was written long before its eventual publication in 1976, not long
after Christie's death. It is the swan song of Miss Jane Marple, but the mood is rather different
to that of 'Curtain' and the plot, although competent, less extraordinary. Gwenda Reed
attends a performance of 'The Duchess of Malfi' and has a flashback to a murder that
occurred when she was a child. So begins one of those mysteries at which Christie so often
excelled, concerning a 'murder in retrospect'. It is a well-crafted example of its kind, with a
pleasing solution, and although Miss Marple's part in it is not quite as memorable as in some
of her other investigations, it rounds off the series of novels in eminently satisfactory fashion.
(
Martin Edwards
- author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries)
