Sleeping Murder
by Agatha Christie
Blurb:
In Agatha Christie’s classic, Sleeping Murder, the indomitable Miss Marple turns ghost hunter and uncovers shocking evidence of a perfect crime.
Soon after Gwenda moved into her new home, odd things started to happen. Despite her best efforts to modernize the house, she only succeeded in dredging up its past. Worse, she felt an irrational sense of terror every time she climbed the stairs.
In fear, Gwenda turned to Miss Marple to exorcise her ghosts. Between them, they were to solve a “perfect” crime committed many years before.
My Reaction:
I'm a big fan of Agatha Christie's work on TV and film (though some adaptations are better than others). However, I haven't read many of her novels (maybe three others, besides this one), and I thought I'd try to remedy that, especially since some of the adaptations take great liberties with the original material. That combined with my Swiss cheese memory might make some of the mysteries feel almost new to me.
I've seen one or two TV adaptations of this novel before, and at least one of them must have made an impression, because I remembered the identity of the murderer very early in the book. It's not quite as entertaining to read a murder mystery when you already know who the murderer is, as well as most of the key points of how s/he did it and tried to cover it up. It was still fine, but I did lose my motivation to read quickly.
This is a great whodunit, especially if you don't go in already knowing the answer!
