The Seven Dials Mystery (Superintendent Battle)

by Agatha Christie

A healthy young man dies in his sleep, despite the ringing of eight separate alarm clocks...

Gerry Wade had proved himself to be a champion sleeper; so the other house guests decided to play a practical joke on him. Eight alarm clocks were set to go off, one after the other, starting at 6.30 a.m. But when morning arrived, one clock was missing and the prank had backfired with tragic consequences.

For Jimmy Thesiger in particular, the words `Seven Dials' were to take on a new and chilling significance...

• ISBN10: 0002317494
• ISBN13: 9780002317498
• Publish Date: 10 July 1997 (first published August 1967)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 13 May 2006
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins Crime
• Edition: New edition
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 224
• Language: English

Reviews

[brokentune]

"The clocks were wrapped up and paid for. Mr Murgatroyd watched the cars drive away with a puzzled air. Very spirited the young people of the upper classes nowadays, very spirited indeed, but not at all easy to understand. He turned with relief to attend to the vicar’s wife, who wanted a new kind of dripless teapot."

There is a lot to like about The Seven Dials Mystery. The spirited young people, the charming older generation, the country house setting - complete with a despotic gardener, London nightlife, and of course a murder which could not have possibly been committed.

A fun read with a twist.

[clq]

Normally when I read an Agatha Christie I expect a good mystery with a bit of a story around it. That's why The Seven Dials Mystery really surprised me, it actually felt like a story which happened to have a mystery in it. It also had another quality that took me off guard. It is consistently funny. It does that wonderful thing of being effortlessly humorous in an understated, very British, way. The characters are wonderful, and the story flows well.
The mystery, however, does not quite live up to the story.

My main problem with the mystery in this book is that it is just too farfetched. The fact that the characters joke about how unlikely everything seems doesn't make it seem any less unlikely. The revelations aren't obvious or unsurprising, but for some reason they are presented in a way which I found to be oddly devoid of impact. Perhaps I would mind less if the book were by a different author. However, from Agatha Christie I tend to expect a mystery that, while it might be a little out there, at least doesn't require the reader to suspend their disbelief too much or too often.
I therefore feel a little strange about this probably being one of my favourite Agatha Christie books to date. I really liked it, but for all the wrong reasons. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone craving a good Christie mystery, but I wouldn't hesitate recommending it to anyone who just wants a very entertaining, very English, quick read.

I'll be continuing to read the Christie books in the order they were published. If this is an indication of the style she used in this era of her writing, and it is combined with the type of mysteries I know from her later books, I have a feeling that I might really, really, enjoy the next few Christie books I get around to reading.