Next stop on the Christie tour!

I've been reading a lot of Agatha Christie lately, so her novels and stories will feature prominently for the next few weeks. Those who dislike Agatha Christie or mysteries in general may want to take some time off! I do have a couple books on hold coming up at the library soon (I hope) and another history that I've read recently too, so it won't be all Christie, all the time. But most of the time!

Instead of re-reading all my Poirots (which I do anyway generally once a year or so) I decided to branch out and read my Miss Marples. And, indeed, I've branched out even more to read a bunch of Christies not featuring either Poirot or Marple, but that is for another day! Instead of reading the Miss Marples that I own in omnibus edition form, I turned to the giant behemoth of a book - the Seven Deadly Sins omnibus - and read the Miss Marple novel in there which I very rarely read: At Bertram's Hotel.

As a result of very rarely reading this novel, the ending is still a surprise. And right before the ending I am all at sea about how everything is connected and works together. But Miss Marple at the end makes it all clear and the puzzle pieces come together. While Miss Marple may not be as showy a detective as Poirot, she still can figure out murders with the best of them and solve the puzzle.

This mystery novel is really about a place - Bertram's Hotel. It is a lovely hotel in London that retains its pre-War look and charm. And by pre-War I mean even pre-World War One. Lovely English tea is served every day with any kind of eatable you could want: seed cake, donuts (filled with jam), and very buttery muffins. (Yes, you will get hungry while reading the tea scenes!) (As a side note - I need to do a little research into English muffins. I am not sure that Agatha Christie means our kind of muffins - you know, the ones that look like cupcakes but because have no icing are muffins? She may mean actual "English muffins", the ones that hold up the bacon, poached egg and hollandaise in Eggs Benedict, or she may mean something else. Certainly I have never eaten English muffins dripping with butter like she describes. Hmmmm...now I need a snack.)

Miss Marple has come to stay at Bertram's for a treat - the shopping, the plays, the sights and sounds of London. Of course, several other people have come to stay at Bertram's too - the notorious Bess Sedgwick, muddle-headed Canon Pennyfather, and sweet young Elvira Blake, just recently finished school in Italy.

Christie takes these typical British characters and mixes them with another plot - that of a crime syndicate causing a lot of trouble in England at the moment. All kinds of major robberies are taking place and the police cannot find the criminal mastermind behind the plots. Further, there is a strange happening occurring at every crime - a double of some reputable public figure is seen at the crime. Who is the criminal mastermind? What is the point of the doubles? And how does this connect up with Bertram's Hotel? Christie manages to tie these two plots together believably, along with creating some good characters in Bess and Elvira. (Although I'm not entirely clear on the purpose of the doubles.) Elvira in particular is a rather unlikeable young lady - she seems really like a spoiled little rich girl who could have used a good spanking when younger!

This is one of Christie's later books (published in 1965) and while not perhaps as good as those she wrote in her prime, it is still a good read. As Christie got older herself, she really was able to write well about being elderly and the problems that face people as they get older - missing the past, uncomfortable chairs, worries about money. With Miss Marple being an elderly woman, Christie is really able to portray the elderly very sympathetically. Most of the books I tend to read seem to be about young or younger people. It is interesting to read a book with an elderly woman as the main character - nowadays one feels that the publisher would have asked Christie to make Miss Marple a little younger and sexier to make the books more hip! I am glad that Miss Marple is Miss Marple and that through her, Christie is able to give some sort of perspective on age, wrapping it all up in a neat little mystery.