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Murder Is Easy (Superintendent Battle, #4)

Agatha Christie

Start date: October 1, 2022

Finish date: October 31, 2022

Discussion: Group reads

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What Members Thought

Mar 18, 2017 Christine PNW rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: vintage-women

This is designated as a Superintendent Battle book, although he doesn't appear until 85%, and he doesn't solve the case at all. It's better to think of it as a stand along, with Luke Fitzwilliam as the main investigator.

This is not the top of the Agatha Christie heap, but it is a solid mystery. I enjoyed the way that Luke kept referring to his dear old Aunt Mildred, who is clearly in the vein of Jane Marple. This one also provides an easy comparison to Towards Zero, another Battle book with some ...more

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Feb 28, 2016 Amy rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2016

This was rubbish. Are we sure Agatha Christie wrote this? The whole book was the world's dumbest policeman (Luke Fitzwilliams) walking around thinking about who committed the murders and he was continually wrong. He also didn't seem to care one bit about evidence either. Horrible. ...more

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Jan 07, 2022 Bev rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: bought-2018, british-mystery, mystery, vintage-mystery, mount-tbr-2022

Luke Fitzwilliam has retired from the police force abroad (in Asia) and just returned to England. First thing on the train, he winds up sharing a compartment with a (so it seems to him) woolly-minded elderly lady who rather reminds him of his aunt. She confides to him that she's on important business to Scotland Yard. It seems there have been one too many "accidental" deaths in her small village of Wychwood and she believes she knows who's behind it--she insists they "get a look on their face" w Luke Fitzwilliam has retired from the police force abroad (in Asia) and just returned to England. First thing on the train, he winds up sharing a compartment with a (so it seems to him) woolly-minded elderly lady who rather reminds him of his aunt. She confides to him that she's on important business to Scotland Yard. It seems there have been one too many "accidental" deaths in her small village of Wychwood and she believes she knows who's behind it--she insists they "get a look on their face" when they've chosen their next victim--and...she knows who's going to be next. An inoffensive doctor by the name of Humbleby. Luke is pretty sure that the Yard will just murmur interestedly and send the lady on her way.

But Miss Fullerton was wrong about who the next person to die was going to be...for she was struck down in a hit-and-run accident on her way to Scotland Yard. Fitzwilliam doesn't think of the newspaper report as more than a coincidence. But then a few days later he reads the death notice of a Dr. Humbleby from Wychford and he begins to wonder. He talks it over with his best pal, Jimmy Lorrimer who just happens to have a cousin down in Wychford. They fix it up that Fitzwilliam will be another cousin and go stay with cousin Bridget and her fiancé Lord Easterbrook and try to find out if Lavinia Fullerton was imaging evil in her backyard.

It winds up she wasn't. The longer Fitzwilliam stays in the village the more convinced he becomes that the old lady knew what she was talking about. But there's so little proof and it seems that the killer just doesn't make mistakes. He's very much afraid that there will need to be another death before he'll be able to catch the killer out...and he's even more afraid that Bridge may be next on the madman's to-do list.

I don't believe that I have read this one since the very first time I read it back in the 1980s. I'm not entirely sure why, because it's quite a nice little story. There are plenty of possible suspects with ties one or more (and, if we follow Luke's loose logic, likely all) of the victims. Christie does what she does so well...which is make me fasten onto one particular suspect and completely ignore the one she plainly displayed to me. I just have two quibbles with this one. First, Luke Fitzwilliam doesn't seem all that good a detective for a former policeman. Bridget figures things out much better--of course, she does have an inside track, having lived there and all. But still--his methods and deductions just don't seem very police-like. Second, we see very little of Superintendent Battle. He makes a cameo appearance at the end, but I would have liked to have had him more active in the story.

Putting aside those quibbles, this is still a highly entertaining mystery with an exciting denouement and a little romance thrown in for good measure.

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting portions of review. Thanks. ...more

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Jan 22, 2017 Damaskcat rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book is part of the Superintendent Battle series but unfortunately he doesn't appear until the very end of the book to make the arrest. The detective in this book is Luke Fitzwilliam who happens to come across an elderly lady on a train journey. She tells him an unbelievable story about a series of murders in the village in which she lives. She doesn't think the local police will believe that the deaths were murder so she is going to Scotland Yard to tell them about it.

Luke - a retired dete ...more

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Sep 15, 2022 Susan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Published in 1939, this is part of the series featuring Superintendent Battle, although he only appears at the end in a cameo role. Our main character is Luke Fitzwilliam, who returns to England from an overseas job in the police. He finds himself on a train with an elderly lady, Lavinia Pinkerton, who informs him that she is going to London to report a number of murders in her small village of Wytchford-Under-Ash. When Luke later reads that the old lady has been killed by a hit and run driver i ...more

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Oct 14, 2023 ShanDizzy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

”My name is Luke Fitzwilliam.” As the train drew in to the platform he added: ”Can I get you a taxi?”
“Oh, no, thank you.” Miss Pinkerton seemed quite shocked at the idea. “I shall take the tube. That will take me to Trafalgar Square, and I shall walk down Whitehall.”
“Well, good luck,” said Luke. Miss Pinkerton shook him warmly by the hand.
“So kind,” she murmured again. “You know, just at first I thought you didn’t believe me.” Luke had the grace to blush. ”Well,” he said. “So many murders! Rathe ...more

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Apr 15, 2018 Julie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: detectives, reviewed

"Liking is more important than loving. It lasts. I want what is between us to last, [...]. I don't want us just to love each other and marry and get tired of each other and then want to marry someone else."

An intriguing concept, that unfortunately did not live up to it. This wasn't one of the better Christies, for a couple of reasons.

Despite being tagged as third of the Superintendent Battle novels, he wasn't there until very late in the book, in what was basically a cameo appearance. If you were like me, spending almost the entire book waiting for Battle to appear, and even thinking of wild theories as to how Luke might be Battle, then prepare for some disappointment. Perhaps it wasn't quite fair to tag Battle's name, as this was primarily a stand-alone novel in the vein of The Man in The Brown Suit.

Luke Fitzwilliam as the protagonist was also a head-scratcher. Once deployed as a policeman in the Mayang Straits and now back in England ready for a life of leisure, Luke was barely competent in his investigations into the affair. One character, in a racist aside, wonders how hard it can be to police in the Mayang Straits, and honestly, based on Luke's performance, he probably didn't learn anything while there.

I like Bridget Conway a smidge better, and this could have been a better book if she was the main character. What happened with Ashe Manor? How did she end up as Lord Whitfield's secretary? I admire her pragmatism, because as a woman of her time, what was she supposed to do?

That said, I do think Lord Whitfield, a self-made millionaire and a son of a boot-maker, was treated a bit unfairly by his social equals, so to speak. He is both looked down on by the elite (although they don't hesitate to kiss his ass when needed) and disrespected by the lower class for being upwardly mobile. The problem of class is pervasive in most Agatha Christie novels and other novels of that era, and this is emblematic of those.

The mystery isn't gripping, but it's short and can be easily read in a lazy afternoon. A small warning, there's one scene with the abuse of an animal, specifically a canary - not horrifically graphic but mentioned a couple of times. ...more

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Nov 01, 2020 Sarah G rated it it was ok

After a very promising start this story turns into a very subpar (and I speak as a huge fan of Agatha Christie) murder mystery. The characters are one-dimensional stereotypes and the ‘strange gay man running an antique shop’ descriptions were quite awful. There are too many forgettable characters, too many murders, a ridiculous romance sub-plot and overall not very believable at all.

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Oct 07, 2022 Frances rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-series

This was not one of Christie's better ones, Superintendent Battle appears only at the end and doesn't really do much, and the principal "investigator" has not stood the test of time in terms of likability or sympathy. Still, a mediocre Christie is still better than most of her GA peers! ...more

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