Roman Clodia's Reviews > Murder is Easy

Not vintage Christie but, as usual, this slips down very smoothly and is a fun Halloween read set as it is in Wychwood - with all kinds of witchy and black mass goings on. The investigation isn't the greatest as Luke, a colonial policeman, noses around the fateful village while falling in love with a woman with witchy hair! Still, as usual, Christie pulls off one of her sleights of hand, though this one is somewhat easier to spot.

(view spoiler)[I can see why some people have a problem with the frustrated spinster as murderer stereotype, but it's quite a social indictment as she says at the end that she knew she was clever but wasn't allowed an education: 'I always had brains, even as a girl! But they wouldn't let me do anything ... I had to stay at home - doing nothing.'

And one of the reasons that she gets away with it all is precisely because patriarchal shaping of women has forced them into silence: 'But I never showed my feelings. We were taught that as girls - a most valuable training.'

So I'd suggest this is actually quite subversive - if Miss Waynflete had been allowed to have an education, a career, and had been allowed a voice, she'd never have brooded for about 30 years and turned into a mad killer, the text suggests. (hide spoiler)]