Agatha again

27. THE SITTAFORD MYSTERY
A psychic table turning seance predicts a murder - and guess what - a murder happens! A book in which everyone wonders why someone would rent a house in Dartmoor in winter. A book in which a journalist gets very lucky but not as lucky as he hoped for. A book in which all think the suspect didn't do it but it takes a very efficient girlfriend of the accused to solve the mystery. A book in which the solution is obvious - once you know it :-)

Memorable quotes:
-"What was the good of a woman if she didn't look like a woman?"
-"... a man who makes enemies in one place will make them in another..."
-"Sloppy crying had never helped anyone yet."
-"If a man has got two legs he doesn't need four wheels."

Favourite Guest Character: Major Burnaby, probably.
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: ***
10/15


26. TOWARDS ZERO
Tennis player Nevile Strange strangely thought it would be a good idea to spend vacation with his wife, wife's admirer, ex-wife, and ex wife's admirer. A tense atmosphere until the murder happens. But the killer did not expect that someone might know something or that someone might have observed or smelled something. An interesting story in which murder is not the beginning of the story but the end of it! Or rather the means to the end...

Memorable quotes:
-"Things don't happen unless you make them!"
-"I know you've been unhappy - very unhappy - but I can't help feeling that even that is better than - well - nothing. Emptiness!"
-"You'd be surprised at the things people do when they've got a good enough reason."
-"I have a great regard for the truth. But I've discovered there are things that matter more."

Favourite Guest Character: Mr. Treves
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: ***
10/15


25. THE SECRET OF CHIMNEYS
Arsène Lupin comes to Chimneys! Anthony Cade accepts a job of delivering provocative memoirs of a Herzoslovakian (cute, ha?) count and a bunch of love letters to the UK. Soon he faces a burglar, is asked to dispose of a body and joins the international hunt on King Victor at Chimneys. Missing jewels, secret passages, nightly intruders, hidden clues... "Chimneys is full of suspicious characters" and as one knows "foreigners were liable to be shot."

Memorable quotes:
-"I simply love being loved."
-"It's just as exciting to buy a new experience as it is to buy a new dress - more so, in fact."
-"It was horrible to be shut up with a dead body and to have no one to speak to."
-"I've got a theory that one can always get anything one wants if one will pay the price. And do you know what the price is, nine times out of ten? Compromise. A beastly thing, compromise, but it steals upon you as you near middle age."

Favourite Guest Characters: Anthony, Virginia, Lord Caterham and Battle were all superb! I cannot possibly pick just one.
Mystery: ****
Final Solution: ***
Entertainment: *****
12/15