Murder on the Links

Book Description

A millionaire's been found stabbed in the back on his private golf course. Hercule Poirot finds no shortage of suspects in the victim's family tree, but even he is surprised when the killer strikes again.

From the files of mystery's #1 bestselling author
A classic case for Hercule Poirot, the best-loved detective

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An urgent cry for help brings Poirot to France. But he arrives too late to save his client, whose brutally stabbed body now lies face downwards in a shallow grave on a golf course. But why is the dead man wearing his son's overcoat? And who was the impassioned love-letter in the pocket for? Before Poirot can answer these questions, the case is turned upside down by the discovery of a second, identically murdered corpse . . .

Customer Reviews:

"For God's sake, come!".......2007-09-19

In her second novel featuring Poirot, the peculiar private investigator from Belgium, Christie fails to illustrate the main trait that made her famous. The author had the ability to constantly "fool" us in connection with who the culprit was in each case and at the same time dangle the truth in front of our eyes, without us realizing it. In this novel, that is not the case, and as the story progresses we are immersed into a tangle of complicated connections that go against the aforementioned simplicity.

As is usually the case in Poirot's novels, the events are described by Hastings, a charming character, who serves as the punching bag that tries to make sense of things, only to be beaten down by Poirot's brilliant deductions. The Belgian detective is bored out of his mind, with obvious cases that present no challenge to him, until a letter from Monsieur Renauld arrives. The missive comes from France, and carries a palpable sense of urgency. The sender is convinced that his life is in danger and requests that Poirot gets there to assist him as soon as possible. Thus, the detective, together with Hastings, embarks on a journey to France, towards a new challenge.

Upon their arrival at the villa, they face the news that they got there too late, and that Renauld was murdered the night before. Naturally, Poirot offers to stay around and help solve the case. There are a good variety of suspects, including a lady that had visited the victim frequently, a wife that may feel disrespected, a son that fought with his father shortly before the murder and a mysterious young artist that had crossed paths with Hastings before.

As I already mentioned, the only drawback I found with this novel is the way in which the author twisted and turned the plot, but I understand that she was still at the beginning of her career. She does a few things very well though, like for example the way in which she continues to develop the character of Poirot. The detective's worship of the little gray cells and his preference for method and order over running around after clues make him a very special character; especially since in this case, he is pitted against a French detective from the Surete, Giraud, in a competition of contrasting styles that is exciting to witness.

Even though this is a sub par effort for Agatha Christie, it is still a decent novel. If this is by any chance your first attempt at reading her work, I recommend that you stick with it. The rewards are going to be worth it! - 3.5 stars

Early book; not hit her stride yet; worth reading for fans.......2007-01-04

A fan's book. Many are better but Agatha is Agatha, none like her.

Agatha Shanks One.......2006-04-19

This book made me flash on the great Neil Simon comedy, "Murder By Death." A madman assembles the world's greatest fictional detectives, including a fellow named Hercule Perrier, and laces into them about how their books "tricked and fooled" readers for years.

"You've tortured us all with surprise endings that made no sense. You've introduced characters in the last five pages that were never in the book before!"

Christie was just starting on her amazing run of mystery-novel success with this, her third novel and second featuring Hercule Poirot, her best-known creation. Published in 1923, it features Poirot as a kind of thin Sherlock Holmes manque with a Watson-esque stuffy Brit companion named Hastings and a snooty Paris police detective Poirot shows up at every turn. While the murder under investigation offers numerous clues, red herrings, and sudden plot twists, the only thing apparently keeping Poirot from wrapping things up sooner is his complicity with Christie to stretch her story out to novel length.

Coincidence is a dangerous device to introduce to any book. Here it is done thrice, first when Hastings meets a girl on a train en route to meeting Poirot in London who will later turn out to be no small player in the murder case, though it occurs in a small French village many miles away.

Second, we learn how two conspirators who fell out and changed their identities unknowingly found themselves neighbors in this same village.

Finally, a fellow happens to have a heart attack that furnishes a couple with a dead body they have immediate need for without the guilt of shedding blood.

And there are even identical twins involved! Now I know where the "Knight Rider" people got their ideas, though at least they had the better sense to wink at the audience about their audacity.

Dialogue that creaks with age, too: "I've got you - and my wrists are like steel!"

The title of the book might as well be "The Murder By the Garden Shed" for all it has to do with golf. Except for some engaging banter between Poirot and Hastings, it lacks ambiance of any kind, and while a serviceable whodunit, it seems more disposed to keep readers guessing than give them something sensible to chew on when it's all over. Stock figures twitter and scowl, while Hastings, as Mark Winger noted in a fine review here, acts nonsensically to protect an attractive but dubious woman in a subplot whose resolution is the story's weakest moment.

Obviously, the author did better work later on, and maybe this is a wrong place to start reading Christie. It's easy constructing a mystery if you let everyone in it act the idiot except the character who figures it all out. The trick Christie developed later on was making the actors in the story alive and intelligent, and still twisting things to the reader's satisfaction. Here she doesn't, though. Let's call it a mulligan and move on.

Stick With It!.......2004-11-02

I've recently started reading the Christie mysteries I've missed along the way, including this, her second full-length Poirot. I found it tough going at times, somewhat confusing...but I've rarely been so blown away by the denouement of a whodunit! I can only imagine that this was the book that cemented Christie's reputation after her debut with "The Mysterious Affair At Styles." Sure, the writing is old-fashioned (it was written in the late 20s, after all), but the intricacies of the plot and the way Christie keeps you off-base and guessing until the very end are simply stunning. You may not have heard of this Christie (it was new to me), but it truly ranks up there with "...Roger Ackroyd" and "...the Orient Express" for sheer suprise value.

a confusing christie.......2004-06-30

I found this book to be just as delightful as most of christie's mysteries. Poirot is at his best, Hastings muddles along complicating things and there's plenty of bright young people in love to make this a cozy mystery. The end however is a bit confusing. Without spoiling it for other readers, I found the plausible motives and cast of villians to be a little disconcerting, especially given Poirot's propensity to blame each innocent attendant before finally throwing the curtain back and revealing the true murderer.

Agatha Christie's Poirot : The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Murder on the Links/ Cassettes (Bbc Radio Presents - Abridged Edition)

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A Masterpiece among Christie's Best
The Little Round Man with the Little Grey Cells
The masterpieces among all her books!
My favorite Agatha Christie story by far!
A wonderfully written story with an ending no one expects.

Agatha Christie's Poirot : The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Murder on the Links/ Cassettes (Bbc Radio Presents - Abridged Edition)
Agatha Christie , John Moffatt , John Woodvine , and Laurence Payne
Manufacturer: Random House Audio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

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ASIN: 0553472623
Release Date: 1994-03-01

Customer Reviews:

A Masterpiece among Christie's Best.......2004-05-16

I have listened to these BBC radio adaptations many times over the last 15 years and am always entertained by the quality of the stories, the actors, and the plots. "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" is simply a brilliant mystery, one of Agatha's best, with a dozen legitimate suspects and a most ironic ending. This mystery takes place in a village Hercule had retired to to raise "vegetables" and was having a devil of a time at it. But, murder followed Poirot to the country and he did his best to confound the police, the suspects, and even the murderer. "Murder on the Links" is also a wonderful mystery with several suspects and two corpses not one. By the time Poirot and Hastings travel to France in response to a summons from a rich man who was concerned about his safety, the man has been brutally murdered. Captain "Arthur" Hastings plays an active role in this mystery, falling for one of the suspects in a big way. The John Moffatt's portrayal of Hercule Poirot, the Belgian wonder, is always classic and is so in both of these stories. I stongly recommend these BBC radio shows to all Agatha Christie fans, especially those that enjoy Hercule Poirot.

The Little Round Man with the Little Grey Cells.......2001-03-01

Hercule Poirot was a short, fat, dapper detective who solved his cases by exercising his "little grey cells".

"The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" was Christie's fourth Poirot novel, while "Murder on the Links" was her second. In both Christie adopts the motif of narrating the story from the point of view of someone who undertakes to assist Poirot in the solution of the mystery. Christie introduces the cast of suspects, gives each of them a dark secret and a motive to lie, and piles up the circumstances in such a way that the flying fickle finger of suspicion points to every one of them at some time or another. She compounds the confusion by supplying false leads and deliberatly glossing over hot clues.

In each case Poirot holds his cards close to his vest, tantalizes the reader/listener with cryptic comments, and finds the most inconsequential-appearing facts to be highly significant. Eventually Poirot airs everyone's dirty laundry, explains his chain of deductive reasoning, reconstructs the crime in all its improbable complexity, and gets a confession. The stories are less mysteries than they are sliding block puzzles. Though extremely short on realism, they are long on entertainment value.

Although the BBC radio play had excellent production values, audio cassette may not be the best way to enjoy a Poirot mystery. I listen to radio plays as I drive on business, and I find the Poirot plays hard to follow because of the large cast of characters and the complexities of plotting. Poirot could probably be enjoyed more readily in print. You could then read, re-read, take time out to mull over the complexities, and follow the story much better. Probably the best way to enjoy Poirot would be to read the story first, and then listen to the radio play.

The masterpieces among all her books!.......1999-11-16

The mystery is beyond our imagination. The background and characters truly victorian, and above all the narrative very gripping! Oh! I am re-reading and every time I enjoy even though I know the mystery! Once again, Poirot at his best with his passion for order and method.

My favorite Agatha Christie story by far!.......1998-10-11

As a Christie addict, having read all of her Poirot and Marple stories many times over, I can only say that "Roger Ackroyd" stands out as the best of the best. Even now, knowing the ending, I enjoy rereading the book, with all the delicious and subtle (but misleading) hints to the grand conclusion. And to the first-time reader, the ending comes as quite a surprise. The fabled Miss Christie leads the reader down so many lovely garden paths before the perfectly logical denouement! Delicious! The audio version is beautifully performed, and does proper justice to the book.

A wonderfully written story with an ending no one expects........1998-03-22

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is one of the best Agatha Christies stories. The plot is a true Agatha Christie's type: dead body, plenty of suspects, confused police, and shocked family. Brilliant Hercule Poirot solves the murder mystery as well as throwing light upon other little secrets of the victim's family. An unusual ending that no one even suspects gives the story its unrepeatable flavor.

If totally unexpected endings aren't your favorite, you might be a bit disappointed with this one. However, for the lovers of Christie's wit and creativity this book is a must have.

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AGATHA CHRISTIE - MURDER ON THE LINKS

Manufacturer: Dell
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GQRXWQ

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"You know very well that you cannot afford to turn your back on Papa Poirot."

MURDER ON THE LINKS
Agatha Christie
Manufacturer: DELL
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Paperback | Christie, Agatha | ( C ) | Authors, A-Z | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000BOCL3O

Product Description

Pictorial cover paperback, approx. 4 1/4" x 6 3/8" - Dell No. 6102

Customer Reviews:

"You know very well that you cannot afford to turn your back on Papa Poirot.".......2007-01-27

(3.5 stars) Written in 1923, Agatha Christie's third mystery features Poirot working with Capt. Arthur Hastings, who acts as his assistant, despite Hastings's greater interest in pursuing charming young ladies. In this novel, Poirot is summoned to France by Paul Reynaud, a wealthy businessman with interests in Chile. By the time Poirot arrives, however, Reynaud is dead, stabbed and then pushed into a makeshift grave on the golf course beside his house. Mme. Reynaud bears bruises from being tied up by two intruders, who, she says, forced her partly clothed husband from the house and then killed him. Soon another death takes place.

Poirot, investigating, is not the Poirot of later novels. Here he is not so much a caricature as he later becomes, even poking fun of his relationship with Hastings, as in the title's quotation. His contempt for the local police is typical, as is his arrogance, but he seems somewhat more human than usual here. Unfortunately, the nature of the mystery prevents much character development for any of the characters. Three young women, all with dark secrets (slowly revealed in the conclusion), act as the love objects of Capt. Hastings and Jack Renaud (the victim's son), while the secret histories, going back twenty years, of several other characters, including the victim and his wife, complicate relationships and hide the solution to the murders.

The plot strains credulity, though that is not necessarily a fatal fault with Christie, whose primary interest is in developing devious plots with minimal clues which still allow Poirot to deduce the murderer. This mystery is so complex and has so many characters, however, that readers will be hard pressed to keep track of them, their secret identities, their look-alikes, and their past histories. Though the plot is clever, there is too little characterization to keep the reader involved in Poirot's adventures here. Not one of Christie's most memorable novels. n Mary Whipple

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Herewith the Clues (A Murder Mystery)
Dennis Wheatley , and J.G. Links
Manufacturer: Penguin Putnam~trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0863501214

Agatha Christie: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd/Murder on the Links (BBC Mystery Series)

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Agatha Christie: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd/Murder on the Links (BBC Mystery Series)
Agatha Christie
Manufacturer: Soundelux Audio Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

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ASIN: 1559350490

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Murder on the Links
Agatha Christie
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Audio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

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ASIN: 0007155239

Agatha Christie Crime Collection: THE MURDER ON THE LINKS; A POCKET FULL OF RYE; DESTINATION UNKNOWN

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Agatha Christie Crime Collection: THE MURDER ON THE LINKS; A POCKET FULL OF RYE; DESTINATION UNKNOWN
Agatha Christie
Manufacturer: Lansdowne Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0701814489

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Crime Collection: The Murder on the Links. A Pocket Full of Rye. Destination Unknown.
Agatha Christie
Manufacturer: Paul Hamlyn
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GLC2DQ

Fatal Links: the Curious Deaths of Beethoven & the Two Napoleons

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Product of a fevered imagination
Amazing Hypothesis
The most interesting book about Beethoven for many years

Fatal Links: the Curious Deaths of Beethoven & the Two Napoleons
Gail S. Altman
Manufacturer: Anubian Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Murder & Mayhem | True Accounts | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This book explores the possibility that composer Ludwig van Beethoven was helped to an early grave because of political or family situations that would have benefited from his death. The symptoms he displayed prior to his death are amazingly similar to those of Napoleon Bonaparte--in which the evidence strongly suggests he was poisoned--and his son, Napoleon II.

Customer Reviews:

Product of a fevered imagination.......2001-10-18

I am sure the authoress has written extensively about Beethoven, but this kind of mass conspiracy theory book is just a product of her imagination. I would commend first a little reding of the facts - contrary to a previous reviewer's claim, Austria was not a "Police State" (read for example Macartney: The Habsburg Empire 1790-1918 and any book on the Austrian police, whose primary role was simply to convey popular views to the Emperor. The Empire was also not a dictatorship as the Emperor was limited extensively by the various assemblies in the provinces. A little reading would certainly go a long way here.
Then of course, there is the little matter of lead. Why was replaced for water carriage and removed from petrol? Funny really, because it is poisonous - lead posioning was a fact of life in those days and Beethoven was as expeosed as anyone. Then the book gets really silly - Napoleon (a real dictator) died of stomach cancer, whatever Ben Weider might think. Easy one this - arsenic only acts as a preservative when applied externally in large quantities and why would reeading from the same head vary by a factor of up to 64? (clue: arsenic was used to preserve keepsake hair in the 19th century). Napoleon II was a sickly child (the Habsburgs in general were not a healthy lot) and died of TB complicated by pneumonia.
Conspiracy theories sell - but all are based on a failure to actually bother to read the substantive background. Most of the material is not accessible to most people because it is written in German and Metternich is a bugbear for Bonapartists who can't accept M outthought Emperor N at the Dresden meeting in 1813. But so what? easy target.
File it under fiction with Weider, Hamilton-Williams, Graham Hancock etc. and anyone else who fails to produce substantive evidence but dresses a few selected pieces of info up to please those who buy this nonsense.

Amazing Hypothesis.......2000-07-26

I was a bit skeptical when I read Ms. Altman's hypothesis suggesting that Beethoven had been poisoned. However, the test results are in, and essentially, she was right. Beethoven's system suffered from a massive ingestion of lead. While another researcher (the one with the test results) guesses that Beethoven was poisoned by his dinnerware or (amusingly) by his "lead" pencil, Ms. Altman's premise that the poisoning was deliberate is well researched, fascinating, and quite plausible. Her book reads almost like a "who-done-it" in what she calls "the crime of the (19th) century." It was amazing to me that Ms. Altman deduced Beethoven's poisoning solely on documentary evidence and eyewitness accounts, and without being privy to the tests on his hair.

The most interesting book about Beethoven for many years.......1999-09-01

The reader of these lines already knows from Amazon's book description that the author explores the possibility that Beethoven was "helped to an early grave" by people who were his enemies or people he thought were his friends. The author looks at incidents in the composer's life during the last 17 years of his life in a completely new and fresh way. She shows us that, unbelievable as it is for us today, in much of Viennese society Beethoven was far from popular. In his times, few years after the French revolution, there were great political tensions between the "establishment" on the one side, and revolutionary and republican ideas on the other. Austria was a police state. Like other artists, the great composer was regarded as a threat to status quo, and with good reason: he often expressed ideas that could be seen as a threat to law and order. Emperor Franz I had reason to fear his influence, just as dictators have always feared popular artists. The book is very thrilling, although it is painful to imagine how the great man in long periods may have been tortured to have him silenced. Involved are many subordinate characters and two more main characters: Napoleon Bonaparte and especially his son "The King of Rome", so it must have been quite complicated to compose the structure of the book, but the author has made that very logic. Maybe this is a book for us enthusiasts who know much about Beethoven's life from before. However, the author explains his situation so well that I think any "newcomer" in the field of Beethoven's life will have full pleasure of it even without any such previous knowledge. I have only minor critical comments. In one of the chapters I did not quite follow the author's reasoning, maybe I would not have been confused if she had summed up and given her conclusion to that chapter in a more explicit way. In my opinion this is the most interesting book about the Life of Ludwig van Beethoven which has been written for many years.

Book Description

The first encyclopedic illustrated guide to the world of Middle Earth and the Undying Lands, this book brings together every important aspect of Tolkien's vast cosmology. More than five hundred alphabetical entries cover five major subject areas: history, geography, sociology, natural history and biography.

The maps, genealogies and time-charts, together with the illustrations of characters, places adn events, reveal to the reader the full dramatic sweep and splendor of Tolkien's world.

Customer Reviews:

Unreliable and Inaccurate.......2007-03-14

IF YOU WANT REAL INFORMATION ABOUT TOLKIEN, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, OR ANY OF HIS OTHER BOOKS, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK, OR ANYTHING ELSE BY DAVID DAY!

I was given a copy of this book as a christmas present a number of years ago, and naively perused it, fascinated by the 'insights' into Tolkien's mythos and world. However, once I actually started to study Tolkien, I quickly realized just how completely bogus most of the stuff Day writes is.

One particular example that always strikes me is Day's entry on dragons, where he claims that there are three kinds of dragons: legless, legged, and winged. This is just plain wrong- there is no hint anywhere in any of Tolkien's writings that there were legless dragons. Day just seemed to like the idea, and went with it.

Great reference book!.......2006-09-29

Read every page of it! Great book. I highly recommend reading this book before you read any of this larger works. There are so many characters and information in Tolkien work, reading this book beforehand will definitely help you if you have had trouble remember who is who.

A great book!!!!! But one problem............2005-04-26

This book is very thorough and explains ALMOST everything in the Tolkien universe very well. When I was looking through a bookshelf at my local bookstore, I found and great book. It changed my whole outlook on Lord of the Rings. Now my knowledge is quite extensive and I understand the lord of the rings trilogy a lot better. I would recomend this book for anyone. There is one small problem.. In the maps of middle earth and arda. They really show no detail of tolkien's world except for the bodies of water and the continents. But overall, this is an awesome book.

Very good, BUT!.......2002-09-21

With "The fellowship of the Ring" motion picture coming up, I became interested again in Tolkiens wholly self-invented mythology. Strolling through my local bookshop one day, my eye was caught by a beautiful painting of Smaug attacking Lake Town. This painting turned out to be the cover of a beautifully illustrated and quite complete encyclopedia of Tolkiens World.

For me, the buying of this book turned out to be the starting point of a massive inquiry in Tolkiens world which I have far from ended today. And even after all that supplementary reading The Illustrated Encyclopaedia remains today one of my favorite books.

However. Getting nowadays more at home in Tolkiens mythology I am beginning to see the wholes in the text. I'm not saying that the "Encyclopaedia" errs, but I do believe that if the author had taken his research even further it would have turned out to be an even better, if not brilliant book. I give two examples.

First, the books chapters are about history, geography, sociology, natural history and biografies. Why not add a chapter about important objects, discussing for example the Rings of Power and/or the various magical swords wielded by the great heroes of Middle Earth? Such a chapter, I am sure, would prove very interesting. But by letting this stuff out, people are left with an alltogether beautiful, but essentially incomplete encyclopaedia.

Second, when one takes into consideration the subjects that did make the book, it is all to obvious that some of the information that should have been there was simply left out. Considering the history of Arda, for example, I was astonished to find no reference at all regarding the Dagor Dagorath, the final battle of the Gods, when Morgoth the Dark Enemy returns and Arda will be laid to waste...

My final word on the subject : I love this book, but what if...

Very good, BUT!.......2002-09-21

My final word on the subject : I love this book, but what if...

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Tolkien: The illustrated encyclopaedia
David Day
Manufacturer: Fireside
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0006E8U4S

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