The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie, first published in the US in 1923.
I’m astonished how skillfully this story was done. A female writer who just might be better than Conan Doyle.
It’s the second book in the series.
Hercule Poirot is even more genius. Sidekick Arthur Hastings even more easily duped.
The story takes place in northern France, giving Poirot a hostile competitor from the Paris Sûreté.
Renauld had been stabbed in the back with a knife and left in a newly dug grave adjacent to a local golf course.
The mystery is compounded when a murdered tramp is found, stabbed through the heart with the same(?) murder weapon.
“The plot has peculiar complications and the reader will have to be very astute indeed if he guesses who the criminal is until the last complexity has been unravelled.
The author is notably ingenious in the construction and unravelling of the mystery, which develops fresh interests and new entanglements at every turn.
She deserves commendation also for the care with which the story is worked out and the good craftsmanship with which it is written. …”
Rick McCharles 