Two More from '28

The Mystery of the Blue Train.

By Agatha Christie (1890-1976).

London: Collins, 1928. 7s. 6d. net.

Reviewed in The Living Age, June 1, 1928 (HERE and below).

Full review:

  Mrs. Agatha Christie knows that the familiar ingredients of mystery story will serve an author who can cunningly enough vary their mixture, and she is content, without straining at any fanciful significance, to engage our attention for her Blue Train tale by the old lure of the Heart of Fire ruby. The clues are many and well crossed to the crime of Ruth Kettering's murder, they lead us tantalizingly to and past good people and bad alike, and surprise us in the end with a properly unexpected villain. The result is still, another score for the intuitive method of the vain but likable Monsieur Poirot.

Resources:

- The GAD Wiki (HERE) - Wikipedia (HERE) and (WARNING! SPOILERS! HERE) - and the ISFDb (HERE).

The Metcalfe Mystery.

By (Horace William) Elliot Bailey (1887-1977).

London: Geoffrey Bles, 1928. 7s. 6d. net.

Reviewed in The Living Age, June 1, 1928 (HERE and below).

Full review:

  The Metcalfe Mystery, too, is a plain tale of villainy, frankly meant to pass an idle hour. For that reason we need not criticize impertinently the adoption of the popular novelist, Lance Wilmot, by Scotland Yard into the affair of the Bedford Row solicitor's disappearance. The amateur, it may be said, shows up foolishly beside the professional. Between them, however, they keep us hunting merrily along false trails until such time as the criminal is unearthed, and Brenda Metcalfe's love story crowned.

Resources:

- The Goodreads review is (HERE).

- 1928 produced some good books but also some clunkers. See ONTOS (HERE), (HERE), and (HERE).

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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