I bought this book mostly because I was intrigued by the fact that it was “judged best detective novel by Agatha Christie.” I really enjoy Christie’s mysteries so I was eager to see what she considered good.

The story starts when Simon stumbles across his brother, Oliver’s, body in his office. You might think this makes Simon the main suspect, and it briefly does, but things soon move towards an old friend of Simon’s, one that he’s sure is not the killer. And so he tries to discover who his brother’s killer is.

As expected, this was an interesting read. The detective and narrator is Simon, and so Devine gets around the problem of having the solution be revealed too early by… just not telling us the details. All we know, at the climactic moment, is that there is one theory that when tested against the facts stands up to scrutiny and thus leads Simon to the murderer.

While the plot was interesting, I thought the main weakness of the book was its characters. I didn’t dislike any of them, but I didn’t like them either. Simon was a puzzle – he didn’t come across as particularly charming but at least two women are in love with him. His relationship with his ex-wife, Linda, was a bit odd as well; Simon spoke of being able to mentor his wife in everything, even her hair, makeup and style. Essentially, he turned her from a complete daddy’s girl into the perfect wife, and even though he told her not to put him up on a pedestal, the fact that he didn’t stop her makes it seem rather creepy.

As for the rest of the characters, they weren’t particularly memorable. I think in general, the women made more of an impression on me, but I think that’s also because Simon talked about them more. Well actually, I think the story revolves around the women more, actually. There was one man – a young lawyer named Kelly – who assisted Simon in his investigations but I never really felt his character come to life and I didn’t think he played a very significant role in the story.

Overall, this was an interesting read. I don’t think it’s so good that I understand why Christie liked it best, but it’s a good example of a Golden Age Mystery that takes place in a small town. I may not deliberately seek out more of Devine’s fiction, but I would borrow more if I saw it.

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