Saturday, 31 October 2026

Murder in Retrospect

The October selection for the Read Christie 2026 Challenge, 'Best Cold Case', is Sleeping Murder (1976), Miss Marple last case. This book was published posthumously, the last Christie novel published.

Newlyweds Gwenda and Giles Reed seek to relocate from New Zealand to England. Gwenda finds a house, Hillside, and sets about decorating it for when her husband arrives. She has an odd feeling, like she has been in this house before, and soon discovers that she lived here as a toddler with her father, Major Kelvin Halliday, and his second wife Helen. She has a vision of a woman, strangled to death in the home, and worries that her father may have killed her stepmother. 

While Miss Marple attempts to dissuade the couple from poking around, Giles and Gwenda set off to find out what happened eighteen years earlier. They identify a number of potential suspects and uncover many clues. The story builds to a crescendo when the killer and their motives are revealed.

I really enjoyed Sleeping Murder. It moves along at an exciting pace and, while I figured out the identity of the killer fairly early on, there are enough red herrings to keep one guessing. Marple is delightful - a shrewd woman with an eye for detail - and I really enjoyed the way she gently steered the case. 

My reviews of other Agatha Christie novels are available on this blog: 

  • The Labours of Hercules (1947) 
  • The Rose and the Yew Tree (1948) 
  • Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952) 
  • A Caribbean Mystery (1964) 
  • Endless Night (1967) 
  • By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968) 

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