Our, my wife’s and my, evening reading aloud has included several Agatha Christie books. At first I planned on doing these in the chronological order they were written and arranged them so in the box. But Lynda pulled one out at random. We read that and the pattern was shot after only two prior reads. So when I went to get the next one, I chose Evil Under The Sun. We had just seen the 1982 movie of this with Peter Ustinov. When I say “just” I mean as in the last year.

The book was good, though perhaps not as good as the movie. The plot differences were significant. Since I knew who the murderer and accomplices were I kept looking for the clues Christie must have put in the book to lead us to them. Alas, the clues weren’t there. Poirot’s ending discussion of who the murderer was and how he determined it was not as good as in other Poirot mysteries. I guess that’s what happens when you see the movie first and read the book later.

While I had a few reservations about the book, it’s Agatha Christie, so it’s obviously worth reading. This won’t be my favorite of hers, but it’s worth reading.

One other thing about this particular book. Our A.C. collection, all paperback, we thought were mostly ones our son bought and left here, no longer wanting them. Turns out that’s not the case.  Some of them were our son’s, but others appear to have other origins. Some have garage sale stickers on them. One has my grandfather Todd’s name written in it, so must have been his. This one is a cheap paperback printed in August 1945 (a wartime book, printed so as to consume fewer resources), and it turns out to have my mother’s name in it. Just “Dorothy” with no last name.  That’s unusual for her to write only her first name in the book, but given the date of publication and what was going on in her life, it makes sense.

This will go back in the box of A.C. books. Someday we’ll get through them and get them to our daughter, which is where they are intended for.