The Hollow by Agatha Christie (1946)

A doctor is murdered at a country estate, but which of the nobs could have done him in.

Mystery Review: The Hollow starts out like a literary novel about couples and affairs where unforgivable things will soon be screamed in drawing rooms. The characters are more complex and interesting (though not all particularly likable) than usual for Christie. Seems as if she started wanting to write a typical domestic novel, but after a hundred pages the story inevitably turns to murder and Hercule Poirot finally arrives on the scene. The resolution is clever and unexpected, though not especially new, and is an interesting comment on how the upper classes stick together even in the face of homicide. In fact, the forces conspiring against Poirot and the police is the more unusual aspect of The Hollow. At the same time for mystery readers there's the question of when do we stop trying to outwit Poirot and go meta by trying to outwit Christie, herself. She enjoys dropping little meta clues and comments in her books, such as mentioning that in detective novels it's always the most unlikely person who's the culprit. But then, which is the unexpected person: the most mild, the one with the best alibi, the least obtrusive? There's the usual casual bigotry ("the raucous voice of the vitriolic little Jewess ...") in The Hollow, actually a little worse than usual, which is surprising in 1946 after the War. There's also the unpleasant implication that decent Christian Britons shouldn't have to work for such undesirables. Lucky that there was no social media back then or Christie's career might never have got off the ground. But as disconcerting and disruptive as her racist and anti-Semitic comments can be, I can't say that I want them removed or altered. I wish she hadn't written them in the first place, but better to remember and face the world as it was (and is).  [4★]