Just Finished Reading: The Thirteen Problems by Agatha Christie (FP: 1932)

It all started as a bit of fun, something to pass the time on long evenings in the village. A group of friends meet on Tuesday nights and call themselves, not surprisingly, the Tuesday Night Club. Each week one member must bring with them a mystery that only they know the answer to and the others have to guess. Some of the friends have more experience than others solving puzzles of human nature – an actress who needs to assume the persona of others, an author who needs to produce believable characters, a vicar who needs to see into men’s souls, a doctor who must diagnose the ill and a police inspector who has seen every kind of evil – oh and a spinster called Miss Maple who regales the group with stories of village life which she regards as a microcosm of life everywhere else. As each problem is presented the gathering is stumped with puzzle after puzzle unresolved until Miss Maple speaks and surprises them all with her incisive analysis of each and every case.

I admit that after enjoying Miss Marple’s first outing a little while back I didn’t enjoy this half as much – although it made me smile and even chuckle more than once. I think it was because of the format which was essentially 13 short stories told in a room. They were, generally at least, interesting stories but I think I was after more substance. I wonder in Ms Christie was rushed into publication after her first book or just wanted to try out some new ideas. Either way it felt rather incomplete in a way. I was more than pleased that I solved 3-4 puzzles before Miss Maple gave her opinion, so I was happy with that. I’m not a great one for solving these things unless it’s pretty obvious (and that, I’ve always thought was the sign of a poor crime writer!). It certainly hasn’t put me off Maple or Christie and I have several more of her books in the pipeline. I fully expect them all to be better than this (slightly) disappointing one.