Quite spooky at times, a little slow for such a short book. I don’t like how much victim blaming there was, especially from a certain “expert” in criminology. I enjoyed the final reveal as it seemed to flip a lot of the silly assertions many of the characters made on their heads. But really this short palate cleansing cozy mystery unintentionally turned into a little bit of a slog to get through, and had me wrinkling my nose at many of the comments made throughout the book, by Miss Marple and others. I won’t go into specifics, but basically this was not my favorite Christie so far. Not the worst for sure, but unfortunately not the best either. 

Writing style: 3
Enjoyment: 2
Emotional impact: 3
=2.75

Way, Way, waaaaaay too long. So many repetitions of everything that has happened. Like we get told the story, then Marple repeats it to someone, and then later on we get the version from another person, and the last sequence is just the whole plot retold.

Also: Serious victim blaming, slut shaming, and misogyny. I know this book is set in another time, but this was so bad. 

 I’m usually a big fan of Agatha christie’s work but this particular book was very disappointing. The story is about Jane Marple who receives a letter from a man she met a few years ago, on vacation in the Antilles, called Mr Rafiel. Before dying, the man wrote to ask her to investigate a crime. Only, he doesn’t give her any insight to know what the crime was, who is involved or where it took place. The story follows Miss Marple while she tries to find out what happened and meets new people. The book just felt too long and it seemed like the writer was dragging the story to create suspense, only it didn’t happen. There was no information given to the reader to find answers to the enigma. The story, especially the beginning, just felt too blurry and general. I had the feeling that Agatha Christie knew the end of her story and wrote backwards while trying to hide every possible clue from the reader. I just waited for the story to pick up and it didn’t really happen until the second half of the novel. Yes, the end was unexpected but it didn’t come out as a huge surprise. I usually gasp when I get to the ending of Agatha Christie’s novels, but it wasn’t the case this time. I also don’t like miss Marple and really prefer when Hercule Poirot is the detective. This book was definitely not my favourite of her novels, even though she has an incredible talent for writing mysteries.