Review: The Seven Dials Mystery

The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a delight, and honestly that was mostly because it's less like an Agatha Christie book and more like a P.G. Wodehouse book that's got entangled with an Edgar Wallace book, to the enhancement of both. In the end, I didn't feel like Christie quite brought off the secret society where everyone wears clock-face masks, because there wasn't any real reason for that other than creating an atmosphere. But it's genuinely funny (not as funny as Wodehouse, but funny in his manner), genuinely suspenseful (again, not as much so as Wallace, but in a similar way), has a great Christie twist that I didn't see coming whatsoever, and in general was fun enough and well-executed enough that I bumped it up to the Gold tier of my annual recommendation list.

The noble owner of Chimneys, the house that features so centrally in the first book in the series, has a strong Lord Emsworth vibe. His daughter Bundle is both a Wodehouse New Woman (irrepressible, headstrong, and capable) and a Wallace New Woman (capable, headstrong, and irrepressible), and acts as the main protagonist. The serious, bespectacled secretary is, of course, reminiscent of the Efficient Baxter, and is even frequently given the adjective "efficient," though he's not as much the butt of jokes as Baxter. The manservant Stevens is a less central, but still imperturbable and capable version of Jeeves. "Codders," the politician from the first book, whose besetting fault is that he speaks to one as if addressing a public meeting, is in fine form. There are multiple proposals, several murders, rapid travel in two-seater cars, brave deeds in the night, several pistols (automatics, incorrectly called revolvers at times, which was still a common mistake at this period), and the traditional settings of great country houses and London clubs.

Overall, a good ride, and I recommend it.

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