A review by pbraue13
After the Funeral by Agatha Christie

4.0

This book is typical Christie - an extended family in a large country house, and the death of a wealthy patriarch with impecunious relative waiting for the reading of the will. This family is her most complex resulting in the family tree she places at the front of the book. The setting is another wonderful one, a gothic Victorian mansion based on the place she retired to post her infamous appearance in real life. It takes on an even more macabre nature when some of the most brutal murders in Christie's catalogue occur there - one including an axe... Sadly, the reason for the savagery of the killing is not justified by the plot and it's hard for me to understand why this method was adopted by the killer or, indeed, by Christie herself. It also includes one of Christie's most daring examples of telling the readers the truth and defying them to interpret it correctly. It contains one of her simplest subterfuges and one that is, in retrospect, maddeningly obvious. Even without this ploy it remains a clever but conventional detective novel. The trick played on the reader puts it straight into the classic Christie class. 4/5 stars!