Title: The Moving Finger
Author: Agatha Christie
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 304
Rating: 4*/5
Agatha Christie – The Moving Finger
This book was a lot of fun, and part of that is because it’s less of a “whodunit” and more of a “whowroteit“. Basically, the plot follows the goings on in a small English town when a spate of anonymous letters leads to what appears to be a suicide. That actually helps to put a unique spin on this that you don’t always see in a crime novel. The drama comes from the tension and anticipation as you wonder who’s going to be targeted next.
This is actually one of Christie’s Miss Marple novels, but Marple plays such a minor role in the story that she might as well not be there. But that’s not such a problem, because it actually helps to highlight the other characters in the story. I always find myself immediately forgetting about Agatha Christie’s characters purely because they differ from book to book and I’ve already read so many of them. But the characters here were pretty believable, even if they were old-fashioned in their ways.
That’s to be expected from a book that was first published back in the 1940s, and I personally found that it stood up well to the test of time. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the best Agatha Christie book – nor even the best Miss Marple book – but it’s still a decent read and I’m glad I picked it up. The time seemed to fly by when I was reading it and although I gave it my best shot, I wasn’t able to guess who was behind it all. And then, when it all came together in the last thirty pages, it all made sense. It’s just a cracking little murder mystery.
Agatha Christie
