Item: The Unexpected Guest
Rating: 2.00
Author: brokentune

by Agatha Christie

A young man, broken down in the fog, witnesses a murder he is asked to conceal… A full-length novel adapted by Charles Osborne from Agatha Christie’s acclaimed play.

When a stranger runs his car into a ditch in dense fog in South Wales and makes his way to an isolated house, he discovers a woman standing over the dead body of her wheelchair-bound husband, gun in her hand. She admits to murder, and the unexpected guest offers to help her concoct a cover story.

But is it possible that Laura Warwick did not commit the murder after all? If so, who is she shielding? The victim’s retarded young half-brother or his dying matriarchal mother? Laura’s lover? Perhaps the father of the little boy killed in an accident for which Warwick was responsible? The house seems full of possible suspects…

THE UNEXPECTED GUEST is considered to be one of the finest of Christie’s plays. Hailed as `another Mousetrap’ when it opened on 12 August 1958 in the West End, it ran for 604 performances over the succeeding 18 months and has been staged many times around the world over the last 40 years.

The Unexpected Guest is another play by Agatha Christie that was adapted as a novel Charles Osborne - so in short, it is not that great.

Of course I am peeved that I ended up with this book because it was advertised as an Agatha Christie novel, and it is not, but I am also astounded Osborne got to write several novelisations at all, and all of them on commission by Christie's estate!

He has no feel for Christie's characters.

While I can see that the setting in this novel is a typical Christie country house mystery, the main character of Laura Warwick does not strike me as a Christie woman at all.

But maybe I'm just peeved that Audible did not make it clear that this was an Osborne novel.

The Unexpected Guest (Miss Marple Mysteries)

by Agatha Christie

Reviewed by brokentune on Feb 20, 2017

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