I finished reading this book today. It is my first Agatha Christie book. I heard you could read pretty much any of her books regardless of the order they were published and it wouldn't make a difference. So I went ahead with this one which is the 11th published novel with the Jane Marple character. I was fairly underwhelmed.
It was only a 180-page book and nothing really took place until darn near close to half way through the book. I was also surprised by how little Jane Marple actually appeared in the book and how inconsequential her role actually was in the plot. Not knowing anything about Jane Marple, coming in I thought she would be more Sherlock Holmes-ish. It didn't make the book any worse in any way. I was just surprised and it makes me wonder if this is her typical role in the "Jane Marple" novels. The Chief Inspector Davy character was enjoyable. The Canon Pennyfather character had a lot of potential but felt like his character wasn't fully utilized. That about sums up the book: too many characters doing too little in a book not long enough to properly cover all of the characters and their different stories.
This review ended up being more negative than I intended it to be. I didn't dislike the book. It was decent and had some bright spots for sure. I guess I was just a little let down because I had high hopes and wanted to start reading some Agatha Christie books. I'll still read some other Agatha Christie books in the future, but my expectations will definitely be more tempered.
Here's a fun quote about tipping:
"Henry moved away. Father was left uncertain whether he ought to have offered Henry a tip or not. It was galling to think that Henry knew the answer to that social problem much better than he did."
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