Murder a la Christie (Golden Age of Mystery Book Club) by Marilyn Levinson – Review by Dr. Anya Schultz
Murder a la Christie by Marilyn Levinson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Murder a la Christie is a spinoff of the great Agatha Christie. In this book, Dr. Lexie Driscoll is a professor whose husband died in a house fire a year ago. She was left with nothing when this happened and was in a bad place not knowing where she would end up. However, she had some friends who lived in a “snobby” town with lots of secrets and had invited her to be the leader of a local mystery book club. One of the members, Sylvia, 70, has been extremely nice to Lexie and the two have built a great friendship has asked Lexie to house-sit for the summer. However, before summer, they would have their first book club meeting where the mystery begins because of Sylvia’s death. Lexie, from the start, does not believe Sylvia’s death is an accident and starts to “privately” investigate and help out Detective Donovan. No one wants to believe that a friend could have killed Sylvia because of the close-knit town they live in, but what other plausible explanation is there? Lexie starts with the guests at the book club meeting and tries to determine if the murderer is amongst them.
I don’t want to give any spoilers away so I kept the summary short. As for whether I like the book, I thought it was okay for a mystery. As for characters, there are many of them to keep track of and all the workings they each engage in. Most of the characters are exactly what you would think – distinct personalities to throw you off and make you try and solve the puzzle along with Lexie. I did find one aspect of this mystery weird and that was the romantic relationships that Lexie was building. She will entertain the idea of 2 different men in the neighborhood, but I am not sure where that all fits into the story except the parts they play in the mystery. Also, the ending, while I figured out who done it before it was announced, that wasn’t the weirdest part. The story ended with a weird exchange, to me, between her and one of her love interests, again maybe in the next book you truly come to find the reason for the romances, but I guess we will have to wait and see.
