Cards on the Table

Agatha Christie

Having read it

★★★☆☆

Despite its good characterisation it seemed, to me anyway and certainly as a non-regular reader of Agatha Christie’s works, a book in search of a purpose after the early murder that forms its (slightly overly convoluted) reason for being.

Still, it had a steady pace which typically increased towards its end as the finger pointing and motives increased.

A good passage

A sudden colour came into Anne’s cheeks. She said, ‘Do doctors usually want to murder their patients wholesale? Wouldn’t it have rather a regrettable effect on their practice?’
‘There would be a reason, of course,’ said Mrs Oliver vaguely.
‘I think the idea is absurd,’ said Anne crisply. ‘Absolutely absurdly melodramatic.’
‘Oh, Anne!’ cried Rhoda in an agony of apology. She looked at Mrs Oliver. Her eyes, rather like those of an intelligent spaniel, seemed to be trying to say something. ‘Try and understand. Try and understand,’ those eyes said.
‘I think it’s a splendid idea, Mrs Oliver,’ Rhoda said earnestly. ‘And a doctor could get hold of something quite untraceable, couldn’t he?’