Christie, Agatha - By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968)

Disappointing. Starts well with Tuppence meeting a mad old woman at a nursing home ("Is it your poor child?"). Said old woman vanishes; and various other old women have also been poisoned - a fact we only learn more than halfway through. In fact, the book is very boring. Nothing happens for long stretches - no detection (Tuppence finds an old house by a mixture of intuition and coincidence, pokes about, listens to fairly irrelevant gossip, and gets nutted on the bonce), no crime (so pointless), and no story. The solution is very muddled and poorly explained, involving as it does criminal gangs, abortion, child murder, witchcraft and lunacy. Tuppence doesn't solve the mysery, but finds the murderer and the truth entirely by accident. 2/5.

Nick Fuller