Christie, Agatha - The Hollow (1946)

Review by Nick Fuller

4/5

Obviously Christie set out to write a novel; and succeeded. As a novel of character, it is a brilliant success, for the characters and their relations, including several affairs, are strongly drawn and motivated. Naturally, the murder of the philandering doctor with his two mistresses and subdued wife is a crime passionel. Unfortunately, as a detective story, the book is weak: the murderer is obvious from the beginning, and the plot is a reworking of Lord Edgware Dies. Poirot is very much in the background, acting only as a deus ex machina at the end; it was a mistake, Christie later felt, to have him in the book.