by Agatha Christie, 1940
Hercule Poirot solves the murder of Arlena Stuart, strangled on the beach of a beautiful English sea-side resort hotel called the Jolly Roger. This one had me fooled – I could not figure out who did it. Could have been her husband, Capt. Marshall, who was fed up with her cheating on him. Could have been Linda Marshall, the young teen-age step-daughter, who hated Arlena with a passion. Could have been the Rev. Stephen Lane, who seemed psycho about evil, especially evil women. Or it could have been Christine Redfern, young wife of Patrick Redfern, who was having an affair with Arlena. Turns out it was Patrick and Christine Redfern working together. She posed as the dead woman on the beach, used suntan liquid on her legs and arms. Then when Emily Brewster rowed the boat back to get the cops, Patrick went into the cave where he had warned Arlena to hide, and strangled her and put her body on the beach, while Christine scampered up the ladder, took a quick bath, and met 3 others for tennis.
Fun book, beautiful setting in the coast of Devon in Cornwall. The Jolly Roger Hotel is on a promontory that becomes an island at high tide. There are cliffs and beaches and all sorts of “nooks” and “paths.”
Need to read her debut novel, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” (1920) and also “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” (1926).