[.ca] Sleeping Murder (ISBN 0007121067)

Who Done It?:
This story is about Gwenda and Giles Reed, and a woman named Miss Marple. Together, they uncovered an unrecognized and unreported mystery, the murder of Helen Halliday (Gwenda's dead stepmother). Gwenda and Giles are determined to solve the mystery while going against Miss Marple's advice to let a sleeping murder lie. They set off to find out who did it while getting clues from people who knew Helen Halliday and Kelvin Halliday (Gwenda's father) when they were alive. I thought this book was excellent. Agatha Christie is now my second favorite author. Sleeping Murder was so good that I couldn't put it down and I read it in one night! Agatha Christie keeps it interesting throughout the book, so there aren't any boring parts. I thought she did a really good job describing the book too. Like "Mrs. Mountford's back parlour was a comfortable room. It had a round table covered with cloth, and some old-fashioned armchairs and a stern-looking, but unexpectedly well-sprung sofa against the wall. There were china dogs and other ornaments on the mantelpiece, and a framed coloured representation of the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose." You can just picture that scene in your head. My favorite part of the book was in Chapter 24 Scene 2, where Dr. Kennedy tries to murder her. When I was reading that part of the book, I was zoned out because I was just so kept up in suspense. I'd rate this book a 5 out of 5 stars because this is an excellent book and if you like really captivating books, I would highly recommend it for you to read.

Rather good:
I enjoy the comforting, engrossing and easy-to-read puzzle-books of Agatha Christie, and particularly those featuring Miss Marple. This is an excellent entry in that series. The mystery's solution is difficult to guess at, let alone spot in advance; there is for a time a teasing ambiguity as to whether something supernatural or psychological might be going on (as in another first-class book of Christie's, The Pale Horse); the social observation is now of historical interest, as well as warmingly nostalgic; the pay-off is satisfying. As ever, though, there is the problem of Christie's dashed-off and sometimes slapdash prose, and of her editors' reluctance to improve it. Throughout Christie's career she blighted her books with an odd fault - very much a characteristic of her non-style - of repeating a word or phrase in successive sentences, sometimes more than once. This is, no doubt, a result of the relative lack of interest she had in actually writing a book once she had worked out its plot (very similar to Hitchcock, who found plotting a joy and filming a chore) and her reluctance to revise (or even re-read, I suspect). There is this example (among several) in Sleeping Murder, on page 81 of this edition: "The woman who opened the door was dark and rather forbidding. She led them across the rather bare hall, and into a study where Dr Kennedy rose to receive them. It was a long, rather high room..."

Let sleeping murders lie:
Gwen Reed was shopping for a house for herself and newly married husband Giles when she came across what seemed to be just the perfect house in southern England. Being born in India and raised in New Zealand, why then did she have the sense of dejavu about the house? Somehow, her picture of what the house should look like after renovations coincided with exactly how the house used to look like. Even scarier, she could picture a strangled woman in the hall and knew her name was Helen. Yet, there never was a murder reported in the region for ages. Enter Ms Marple who guessed Gwen might possibly have spent time in the house as a very young child and might possibly have witnessed a murder. But how would one go about solving a murder twenty years before which had no prior record? How would the Reeds start when they were both newly migrated to England? Ms Marple's advise to let sleeping murder lie went unheeded by the young couple. Somewhere, there was a murderer who committed the perfect, almost perfect, crime and had been probably been comforted by the years of safety. The Reeds did not realize it at first, that what they embarked on would arouse a dangerous sentiment in a person who would do anything to keep feeling safe.

Great for a Marple:
I'm usually not attracted to Christie's detective, Jane Marple, but I loved this one! From the creepiness of the monkey's paw refrences to the pounding thrill towards the end, you will be caught up in the characters. You'll never want to stop reading this book! Gwenda, who is extremely well-drawn, is a newlywed suffering from a murderous image from her childhood. Each step of the "investigation" brings out more chilling, creepy imagry.

Excellent:
This is THE best Christie book EVER! I read it in one sitting. Buy it now!