Review by Nick Fuller
4/5
Surprisingly accomplished for very early Christie, and probably the first demonstration of her skill at misleading the reader. Is the hero really as heroic as he seems, or does Anthony Cade's past conceal the criminal activities of the infamous King Victor? Is the mysterious American, Hiram P. Fish, King Victor, or someone else? What of the bearded Frenchman and the stolid English superintendent? The game of false identities and masks is played out against the backdrop of Chimneys, a stately home so famous that Christie doesn't even bother describing it. Fortunately the place comes to life through the dialogue and characters, all more vibrant and vivid than anyone in her previous four novels; one is reminded more of early Wodehouse. Throw in Balkan politics, secrets and spies, a murdered dauphin and a second incognito, and a sinister foreign gang, all of which may have some connection with the disappearance of the Koh-i-noor, and one has one of Christie’s better books of the 1920s.
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