Latter-day Agatha Christie can be hit-or-miss - A CARIBBEAN MYSTERY was published in 1964 and was one of her better 1960s efforts. It re-reads well (I first read it in 1973, during my Mega-Christie Phase of the early 1970s), and like some of her classic puzzlers of the 1930s and 1940s such as APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH, DEATH ON THE NILE and EVIL UNDER THE SUN it has an exotic locale (the fictional Caribbean island of St. Honore) into which she sets a mixed group of travelers, some of whom have something to hide . . .

Everyone agrees that Major Palgrave is a bore, with his myriad of stories about Kenya and various past adventures in which he either participated himself, or heard about second- (or third-) hand, such as the mysterious death of a woman who had attempted suicide only a short time before and was saved by her husband. "Like to see a picture of a murderer?" he asks Miss Jane Marple, who has been observing various guests and not paying much attention. Then Major Palgrave (who has a glass eye) stares fixedly over Miss Marple's shoulder - "Well, I'm damned---I mean---" and hurriedly stuffs the snapshot back into his wallet. That night the Major dies in his sleep. Had he recognized a murderer?

The most engaging character in A CARIBBEAN MYSTERY is the elderly, curmudgeonly multi-millionaire Jason Rafiel, who recognizes in Jane Marple a sharp-minded woman who doesn't flinch from the truth, and it is Mr. Rafiel, from off-stage, who will set in motion the final Miss Marple novel which Agatha Christie was to write, 1971's NEMESIS, the title of which was a direct reference to the part Miss Marple plays in A CARIBBEAN MYSTERY.

You can relax and enjoy this one!