Literary Significance and Reception
Maurice Willson Disher in The Times Literary Supplement of November 9, 1940 was not impressed with either the novel or the genre when he said in the article titled Murder of a Dentist, "Possibly the reader who wants to be puzzled may be the best judge of a detective story. If so Agatha Christie wins another prize, for her new novel should satisfy his demands. But another type of reader will find it dry and colourless." He continued; "The facts are stated in a joyless style of impartial investigation; it quickens into life only when a revolting corpse is discovered. This is characteristic of Christie's school. The 'full horrible details' that bring people to death are accounted of more importance than details which bring people to life."
In The New York Times Book Review of March 2, 1941, Kay Irvin concluded, "It's a real Agatha Christie thriller: exceedingly complicated in plot, briskly and compactly simple in narrative, with a swift course of unflagging suspense that leads to complete surprise. After closing the book one may murmur, "Far-fetched," or even "Impossible." But any such complaint will be voiced only after the story has been finished; there won't be a moment to think of such things, before."
Maurice Richardson in the November 10, 1940 issue of The Observer started, "The Queen of Crime's scheming ingenuity has been so much praised that one is sometimes inclined to overlook the lightness of her touch. If Mrs. Christie were to write about the murder of a telephone directory by a time-table the story would still be compellingly readable." He did admit that, "Fiend's identity is perhaps less obscured than usual; motivation a trifle shaky, but clue details are brilliant."
The Scotsman of December 26, 1940 said of the book that, "Although motive is not of the obvious order, Mrs Christie deals with the mystery in the most ingenious way and, as usual, produces a masterly solution."
E.R. Punshon in The Guardian of December 13, 1940 summed up by saying, "Mrs Christie has to work coincidence rather hard and the plot is more ingenious than probable, since the culprit could, and certainly would, have reached his end by simpler means than murder."
An unnamed reviewer in the Toronto Daily Star of March 15, 1941 referred to the story as a "neat puzzle" having a "highly involved plot" with a "not-unforeseen solution." The reviewer added, "the pace is swift and talk - curse of the English detective story - is kept to a minimum" and concluded by saying, "Far from usual is...Christie's use of her thriller to expound a number of her own rather odd political opinions."
Robert Barnard: "It is usually said that Christie drags herself into the modern world in the 'fifties, but the books in the late 'thirties show her dipping a not-too-confident toe into the ideological conflicts of the pre-war years. Here we have political 'idealists', fascist movements and conservative financiers who maintain world stability. But behind it all is a fairly conventional murder mystery, beguilingly and cunningly sustained."
Read more about this topic: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (novel)
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