Mrs. McGinty's Dead

Mrs. McGinty's Dead by Agatha Christie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mrs. Oliver cast a glance over the Penguin display. It was slightly overlaid by children’s waders.
“The Affair of the Second Goldfish,” she mused, “that’s quite a good one. The Cat it was Who Died—that’s where I made a blowpipe a foot long and it’s really six feet. Ridiculous that a blowpipe should be that size, but someone wrote from a museum to tell me so. Sometimes I think there are people who only read books in the hope of finding mistakes in them. What’s the other one of them? Oh! Death of a Débutante—that’s frightful tripe! I made sulphonal soluble in water and it isn’t, and the whole thing is wildly impossible from start to finish. At least eight people die before Sven Hjerson gets his brainwave.”

Ms Christie’s alter ego Ariadne Oliver is in fine comic form in this one, bemoaning the lot of the mystery writer. As for The Cat it was Who Died—surely that’s Death in the Clouds, don’t you think? It’s interesting to speculate if the museum in question was actually the British Museum.
A truly delightful mid-period Christie with surprises right to the very end.
But that’s just my own humble opinion…what do you think? Do let me know! Read (or rather re-read) for the Goodreads’ Agatha Christie Reading Group.


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