Title: The Burden

Author: Agatha Christie

Category: Fiction

Page Count: 224

Rating: 3/5

This would probably have to be my least favourite of Agatha Christie’s Mary Westmacott books so far, and seeing as I only have one or two of them left, I’d say that doesn’t bode well. Then again, the themes in it weren’t interesting to me, including that of childhood jealousy between two siblings when a new baby is born.

There’s some okay stuff here and I don’t mean to make it sound as though it isn’t worth reading. It’s just that most of the other Westmacott novels have some sort of redeeming factor for me, usually in the form of a decent moral dilemma. Here, the only real dilemma seemed to be whether praying for God to kill your baby sister was a bad thing or not. But don’t worry, because if he tries to smite her with a righteous house fire, you can always change your mind and rescue her.

And to be honest, that’s about it. I don’t have a huge amount to say about this one because there wasn’t a huge amount to it, it was just a fairly forgettable read with not much going for it, compared either to the other Westmacott books or to the rest of Christie’s ouvre. A shame.

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