The Clocks
A Hercule Poirot Mystery
By Agatha Christie Ulverscroft Large Print
F. A. Thorpe Publishing, (2011)
ISBN: 978-1-4448-0274-0
Genre: Crime, Mystery
Reviewed by Rochelle Caviness - August 19, 2011
When Sheila Webb is sent by her secretarial agency to number 19 Wilbraham Crescent, the only thing she finds odd about the assignment is that she was requested for by name. Following her instructions, she enters the house at number 19 and almost immediately stumbles over a body. Running, screaming, from the house, she nearly knocks over Colin Lamb. A Special Branch investigator, Lamb is lost in suburbia. Pursing another case, he is trying, without much luck, to find number 61 Wilbraham Crescent. Webb's arrival, however, sets him on another course as he helps investigate the mysterious murder of a mysterious man, whose body is surrounded by several clocks that are all set to the unfathomable time of 4:13.
The home at which the murder occurred belongs to Miss Pebmarsh, an independent, strong-willed woman who happens to be blind. Despite her visual impairment, she sees more clearly than many of the sighted people who cross her path! As the story unfolds, Lamb begins to fall in love with Webb, despite the fact that she is quickly pointed to as the main suspect in the murder. Even with the aid of Detective Inspector Hardcastle, Lamb is having difficulty clearing Webb and finding the real killer. Hercule Poirot is asked to step in and take a stab at solving this baffling crime.
The Clocks is standard Christie fare. It has a well-wrought plot, several ingenious red herrings to throw you off the trail of the truth, and it contains a variety of murders, all done nicely off stage, with no mess or bother for the reader to muck through. In addition, The Clocks has a unique conundrum in the form of the clocks that are left behind at the initial murder scene, and which keep disappearing as the story progresses! Of special interest to both mystery and Christie fans is that within the pages of this story, Christie presents a lecture on detective fiction, and the differences that exist between several authors, both from England and from America. The Clocks is one of Christie's later works, and it is a great 'cozy' with which to while away a few hours.
The Clocks can be purchased directly from Ulverscroft.
Click Here for a complete list of all the books written by Agatha Christie.
Related Reviews:
Lord Edgware Dies, by Agatha Christie.
A Hercule Poirot mystery in which the Belgium detective must discover who killed Lord Edgware. Was it his wife who threatened to kill him if he did not divorce her, or was it someone else with a more devious motive?
Evil Under the Sun, by Agatha Christie.
Poirot is on vacation when the lovely Arlena Marshall is found strangled to death. In a flash, he is on the case. With panache he puts his 'little grey cells' to work as he wades through the plethora of likely suspects.
