The Clocks (1963)
Blurb:
My review:
John Dickson Carr once commented that if a detective story concerned a dead body clutching a teaspoon, wearing a domino mask, with all the clocks turned to face the wall, but the detective solved the crime by the discovery of the murderer's fingerprints on the body, the reader would lynch the publisher, shoot the bookseller, and strangle the author. Although Carr never wrote a book which instilled that desire in the reader, Christie did; and this is it.
Although more readable than most late Christie novels, this is one of the most disappointing of her books: a mundane plot in a mundane setting. Into the middle of respectable suburbia is thrust a dead body: a man, stabbed to death, in a room filled with exotic clocks in a house belonging to a blind woman. However, the solution to this agreeable fantasy is a great disappointment: a red herring with no relation to the plot other than to make things difficult. Although there is an excellent clue in the shape of a stiletto heel, the murderers are completely arbitrary. Detection is done by police procedure, while a bored Poirot acts as armchair deetctive and reads detective stories, including Carr. Although Carr is a genius of the first water, it is unfair to compare Carr to this mess; anything, even Ellery Queen, is better than this.