The Seven Dials Mystery

As my regular readers know, I’m in the midst of a long term Agatha Christie reading challenge. The Seven Dials Mystery is my 10th Agatha Christie novel, not counting Giant’s Bread (written under the pen name Mary Westmacott) and the short story collection Poirot Investigates.

What I’m finding thus far in my reading challenge is a lot of the plot elements from the various books continue turning up. The Seven Dials Mystery has many of the same characters from The Secret of Chimneys; Lady Eileen (Bundle) Brent is the main character with the bumbling Bill Eversleigh playing the role of a very important supporting character in this mystery-turn-romance novel.

Once again, a guest has been murdered at Chimneys. This time, it’s during a weekend hosted by self-made millionaire Sir Oswald Coote and his wife Lady Coote, who are letting Chimney from Bundle’s father Lord Chatham. At first the murder is ruled death by misadventure. Everyone except for the dead man’s dear friend, Ronny Devereaux, accepts the coroner’s verdict.

A couple days later, Lord Chatham and Bundle are back at Chimney, the Cootes' lease being up. Bundle stumbles upon a letter the dead man was writing to his adopted sister before his death and begins her own investigation. Things really start to heat up when Ronny Devereaux is killed. Bundle goes in search of the Seven Dials secret society and ends up finding her future husband.

The Seven Dials Mystery features a secret society with a mysterious leader similar to The Big Four. And, like almost all of Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries, it features characters masquerading as someone they are not. Despite all of this lack of originality, I really enjoyed this novel. I love the characters Bundle, Lord Chatham, Superintendent Blunt and Bill Eversleigh. I really hope to read about them again.

4/5