Title: The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side
Author: Agatha Christie
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 352
Rating: 3.5/5
Perhaps I’ve just been reading too much Agatha Christie lately, because this is the second or third in a row that I haven’t enjoyed as much as I was expecting to. That’s not to say that this isn’t worth reading though, if only because it’s a Miss Marple book and she’s always been my favourite of Christie’s characters. I also like how she takes more of a back seat role, watching the case develop and offering little hints here and there but not really playing a major role until the end.
This case is all about a party a movie star’s house where someone dies suddenly under somewhat suspicious circumstances. As you can always tell with a book from Agatha Christie, things progress from there and we soon start to learn about all of the characters and the different ways in which they relate back to each other. In particular, there’s plenty of examination of how family secrets can come back to haunt people years later, a hallmark of much of Christie’s work.
One thing that I did like about this book was the length. It’s a little longer than most of the other Marple books, and while I don’t think those extra pages were needed for the story itself, it was good to get a little extra world building and to see some more of St. Mary Mead. I feel like Christie is at her best when she’s writing about small town England instead of trying to crowbar a bunch of British characters into some unusual setting by a tenuous plot device.
All in all then, this definitely isn’t Christie at her best, but it is still decent enough and a worthwhile addition to the Miss Marple series. Don’t go out of your way for it, but make sure you pick it up if you see a copy lying around somewhere. I think I got mine from a charity shop.
