Christie, Agatha - A Caribbean Mystery (1964)

Review by Nick Fuller

4/5

There is a rather modern feel to this book, with references to sex and perversion on the first two pages, half the characters up to their necks in murder and adultery, and others suffering from nervous breakdowns or the effects of drugs. When one considers that this is set in the Caribbean (West Indies), one is reminded of Dr No more than of Murder on the Orient Express. Miss Marple takes this all in her stride (having spent her life investigating her neighbours' peccadilloes), and concentrates on the murder of a retired soldier who may have identified a fellow guest as a murderer, dithering throughout until she sheds her air of ineffectuality and becomes a rather improbable Nemesis. The book is very short for Christie, novella-length rather than novel, but makes the most of its length: the sudden shift in pace, and the great number of events, in the last thirty pages adds a greater sense of urgency to the tale, something lacking from the more rambling, incoherent and progressively senile later works.

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       My reading of Agatha Christie, save for a few Miss Marple short stories and the non-series novel The Boomerang Clue (a.k.a. Why Didn't They Ask Evans?) has until now largely been restricted to Hercule Poirot novels and stories.

        I have no idea where Christie aficionados rank A Caribbean Mystery, but I enjoyed it tremendously. The characters, though mainly stereotypes, were adequately defined, the puzzle was quite good, and the denouement very satisfying. Refreshingly for a Christie novel—and here I'm harking back to memories of Poirot novels, most of which were read in my now remote youth—A Caribbean Mystery doesn't contain chapter after chapter of interminable suspect interrogations. There are only a couple of those, and they're mercifully brief. What struck me most forcefully was the novel's brisk pace, subtly achieved against a leisurely setting and the relative absence of onstage "action."

        This is one I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.

—Barry Ergang, August 23, 2007