REVIEW: The Seven Dials Mystery

The Seven Dials Mystery

Author: Agatha Christie

What starts out as a practical joke between friends tragically backfires in this mystery by the great Agatha Christie. Published in the UK and US in 1929, the book features Inspector Battle and some of the cast of characters from an earlier book, The Secret of Chimneys.

 I like the female amateur sleuth, Bundle (Lady Eileen Brent), much better than Inspector Battle. She has an energetic personality and is determined to ferret out the truth by whatever means she finds necessary -- even hiding in cramped closets. Inspector Battle appears in 5 of Christie's novels. 

Friends are gathered at Chimmeys again and one of the crew, Gerry Wade, proves to be a late and very sound sleeper. The group decides to mess with him a bit, hiding 8 alarm clocks around his room after he's gone to bed. The clocks are set to ring, one after the other. The next morning they eagerly await the cacophony....and the clocks do start ringing.....but even an entire room full of jangling alarm clocks aren't enough to wake a dead man.....

This book was one of the first Christie novels I ever read. I bought a box set of Christie novels at a garage sale when I was 9, and for whatever reason, this book was grouped in with several Poirot novels. I remember thinking it was hilarious that they hid alarm clocks in someone's room because the person never got up on time. :) I spent an entire summer reading six Christie novels -- the font was entirely too small for a 9 year old to read quickly and I kept having to look up words in the dictionary or ask my father about 1920's vernacular that made no sense to me. In the end, I made it through every single one of those books....and a lifelong love of Agatha Christie's novels was born. 

I revisited this novel with a sense of nostalgia. :) I like Bundle and her group of friends (even the ones that seem upper class twits) and Inspector Battle's style makes for an enjoyable mystery. Battle seems a bit like Columbo....he pretends to be a bit simple or absent minded, while all the time he has an incredibly sharp mind. In the end, he pounces on the bad guys like a tiger with a badge. Christie is the queen of The Reveal, and Battle fits right into that scenario. 

Enjoyable read. The plot widens out into quite the conspiracy and complex dastardly deeds. What seems cliche in 2020 (group of nefarious criminals using disguise and complex sneakiness to commit international crimes) was new and daring at the time this book was written. It wasn't cliche when Christie came up with these plots....everyone imitating her made it old hat. So, I put any sense of reality out of my head and just enjoyed reading this story!

I listened to the audio book (Harper Audio) version of this book. Narrated by Emilia Fox, the audio is 8 hours long. Emilia has a pleasant voice and reads at a steady pace. She does a great job of voice acting....perfect narrator to bring Bundle to life! Enjoyable listening experience!

While I did enjoy this return to Chimneys and Inspector Battle....I really want to read the first Jane Marple book -- The Murder at the Vicarage. I like Christie's side characters for the most part....but Battle and Tommy & Tuppence just aren't Poirot or Marple. So.....while I am on a quest to read Christie's novels in order and doing my best to do so.....I'm going to take the liberty to skip the next book Partners in Crime (short stories featuring Tommy & Tuppence) temporarily.....and read Murder at the Vicarage first.  In my defense, Partners in Crime, is technically already out of sequence as it gathers short stories published in magazines from 1923-24, and gathered together in book form in 1929. Marple first.....then Partners in Crime.  :)