 Miss Marple and mystery |
| Review Date: March 30, 2000 |
| Reviewer: , |
| One of the best of Agatha Christie's later mysteries. Miss Marple has found the perfect spot to stay for her vacation. Nothing ever seems to change at Bertram's Hotel, everything is just as it was before the war. But is this all this charming gentility merely a facade for something far more dangerous? |
The Crumbling Facade
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| Review Date: August 22, 2007 |
| Reviewer: R. Chaffey, Chicago |
Stepping into Bertram's Hotel is like stepping into England of the past, right down to the maids and servers who work there. Everone fits ths part pefectly. All the right people stay there, a mix of nobility, clergy and fine old dames, and people seek out the hotel to have just that experience - a step back in time. Miss Marple has decided to take her vacation at Bertram's Hotel, a place she stayed at when she was a young girl. To her great pleasure and surprise, she sees that everything at Bertram's is just as she remembered it, well, not quite, for everything is not quite what it seems to be at Bertram's Hotel.
The plot revolves around a cast of characters staying at the hotel, and then mixes in Scotland Yard who are trying to solve a string of bank and train heists. When Chief-Inspector Davy makes a connection between some eye-witness accounts and Bertram's Hotel, he decides to check the place out. Initially, he is just as struck as Miss Marple at the atmosphere of the hotel, but he definitely smells a rat, and knows somehow that Bertram's is involved with the case the Yard is trying to solve. What follows is a masterfully woven mystery about an absent-minded clergyman who has 'disappeared' and a young heiress intent upon knowing how much money she will inherit (or who will inherit it if she dies). The matter becomes all the more pertinent when a hotel worker is killed, leaving Davy with no doubt that Bertram's is a facade.
"At Bertram's Hotel" is as fast-paced as all of Christie's works are: the reader never wants to put the book down because you need to know what happens next. Miss Marple's methods of deduction fit in perfectly with the mood of this novel, and she winds up giving the Chief-Inspector a hand in solving the case, naturally, although the inspector is just as sharp-eyed as Miss Marple. The conclusion is both rushed and unhurried, and the story is left with a delightful air of uncertainty at the very end. |
WILL SOMEONE LET THE WOMAN SPEAK?
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| Review Date: March 25, 2008 |
| Reviewer: allitwantedbythunder, |
| This is not the book that Agatha Christie wrote. There are major differences in punctuation, word choices, and scene breaks between the original Collins and Dodd Mead editions of this novel. There are further differences between the Dodd Mead editions republished by Random House/Avenel and the Dodd Mead editions republished by Simon & Shuster/Pocket. What "improvements" have been made for the Signet edition? For every publishing house putting out her works, there seem to be a new batch of editors altering Agatha Christie's words and the sound of her voice. What's the matter with these publishers? Whose voice do they think we want to hear when we sit down to a novel by Agatha Christie? And what will she sound like twenty years from now? It's frightening that her estate has failed to see the importance of guarding her words as she wrote them. Please tell me I'm not the only one here who senses that a crime has been committed. |
Bertram's is the best!
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| Review Date: October 26, 2002 |
| Reviewer: , |
| I am 11 and I loved this book! I read it in 1 day and I am the slowest reader in the world! The end is a complete suprise and it kept me guessing the entire way through. Miss Marple does and excellent job on finding outthe murder! This is a perfect book!!! |
Absolutely marvelous.Miss Marple does it again!
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| Review Date: July 24, 1998 |
| Reviewer: , |
| This book is truly a great mystery of it's time and ours.Agatha Christie takes you to a place where dreams come true and where you learn that the innocent are usually responsible.A work of art. |
Two thumbs up!
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| Review Date: June 9, 1996 |
| Reviewer: , |
| This book is an Agatha Christie's classic. You just get involved in the story and you cannot put it down. As usual, the end is unexpected. It is a great book for those who like mistery |
Classic Christie
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| Review Date: May 31, 2006 |
| Reviewer: Books By BES, |
| This is Christie in her most classic sense - Jane Marple stumbling upon a mystery while on vacation and then solving it in her own inimicable fashion. 'At Bertram's Hotel' is the kind of mystery I grew up watching my mother read and then when I became an adult, quickly grew to love in my own right. |
Miss Marple takes a trip down memory lane and.....
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| Review Date: July 10, 2004 |
| Reviewer: Jeanne Tassotto, Trapped in the Midwest |
| ends up involved in a modern day murder. Jane Marple's nephew has given her a treat, a vacation. Miss Marple was delighted with the idea but requested a trip to London instead of the seaside resorts he had mentioned. Specifically she wanted to stay at Bertram's Hotel, a place she had stayed several times as a young girl. Her family was surprised that the establishment was still in business and cautioned her that it could not possibly be as she remembered it but arrangements were made and soon she was settling in. To her delight Bertram's had not changed a bit. She also met an old friend that was staying there and, while expressing her surprise at this lack of change, realized that Bertram's should have changed. Over the next few days as she enjoyed her vacation Miss Marple puzzled over this lack of change and other odd things about Bertram's. Odd things like how Bertram's could possibly find and keep such good help, much less pay them! And wasn't it interesting the way she and her friend were seeing so many people they knew, or thought they knew. Being Jane Marple she also could not help but take an interest in those around her. Particularly she noticed the notorious Bess Sedgwick and the Hon. Elvira Blake and the men that seemed to be following them. Murder of course invades the sancitity of Bertram's (this is a Christie after all). In the course of their investigations the police also come to realize that Bertram's is too good to be true and with Miss Marple's aid sort out the tangle that ties Bertram's to an international crime ring and teenage romances - both past and present. This is one of the 'cozy' mysteries for which Christie is famous.
The plot centers on Bertram's, an Edwardian hotel isolated in modern (1965) London. Secrets, long hidden, come to light due to unlikely coincidences. As always in a Christie, all the clues are fairly laid out for the reader to follow and of course, there is a surprise twist at the end. |
One of Christie's Later Books
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| Review Date: April 11, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Molly, NC |
Bertrams's Hotel was a place that was kept the way it was in the old days, with chairs high enough for an elderly woman to sit down comfortably and real muffins dripping with butter. The staff's perfection in all their duties seemed like something out of a book or movie. Being of a bygone generation, Miss Jane Marple liked staying there, where things were done properly. Little did she know that it had a mysterious side to it. When she saw Canon Pennyfeather leave his room at an odd, early hour, she kept it in mind. She didn't miss much of what else was going on at Bertram's Hotel, or at surrounding areas, for that matter. When a young woman was nearly killed, and the doorman rushed to put himself between her and the gunman, it seemed an ordinary street crime, except that the local police had already suspected something bigger was going on. Putting the pieces together, Miss Marple figured out the scheme without leaving her chair.
This was one of Christie's later books which have a slightly different style than her early ones, though the fast-pace and the dialogue that characterize her books is there. It is longer than the early ones: by this time her publishers had probably finally worn her down and talked her into adding an extra 10,000 words or so of description not essential to the plot. |
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