A review by leaflibrary
The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I liked this one pretty well. The story - both past and present - felt very familiar, so much so that I wondered if I had seen an adaptation years ago. There truly is tragedy in this one, even if the characters who die "had it coming" due to past or present villainy. 

My favorite character was Cinderella/Bella/Dulcie, an underage manic pixie dream girl who eventually marries Hastings. Much like the surprise of meeting a Poirot already in retirement last book, this end game pairing caught me off guard so early in the series. Apparently Christie later agreed, because Cinderella is barely - if at all - mentioned in the Hastings stories ahead. How disappointing! Dulcie is such a bold, rascally, risk-taking character, with a love of true crime and acrobat skills to boot. She could have been a youthful, plucky third in at least a few of the Poirot/Hastings pairings ahead! 

I also wish she weren't SO much younger than Hastings - that weird old womanizing stick in the mud. She's "little over seventeen," and he's at least 30 (his age in Styles). Speaking of Styles, it's interesting how Christie covers that topic: she references it almost immediately, but without giving anything (other than the initial death) away for someone who hasn't read it yet.

“Do you remember the Styles Case?” I asked.
“Let me see, was that the old lady who was poisoned? Somewhere down in Essex?”
I nodded.
“That was Poirot’s first big case. Undoubtedly, but for him, the murderer would have escaped scot-free. It was a most wonderful bit of detective work.”
Warming to my subject, I ran over the heads of the affair, working up to the triumphant and unexpected dénouement.

So who knows how much time has passed. Near that section, Hastings, as narrator, announces, "Now I am old-fashioned. A woman, I consider, should be womanly. I have no patience with the modern neurotic girl who jazzes from morning to night, smokes like a chimney, and uses language which would make a Billingsgate fishwoman blush!" This particular misogyny is hypocritical, given his immediate attraction to and eventual romance with a woman who does all of the above. The concept of "jazz[ing] morning til night" is now hilarious, and Hastings, as in Styles, is at his funniest while trying to be galant with ladies. The scene where Hastings gives Cinderella time to escape by fending off Poirot is especially funny:

It was a sound in the doorway that made us look up. Poirot was standing there looking at us.
I did not hesitate. With a bound I reached him and pinioned his arms to his sides.
“Quick,” I said to the girl. “Get out of here. As fast as you can. I’ll hold him.”
With one look at me, she fled out of the room past us. I held Poirot in a grip of iron.
“Mon ami,” observed the latter mildly, “you do this sort of thing very well. The strong man holds me in his grasp and I am helpless as a child. But all this is uncomfortable and slightly ridiculous. Let us sit down and be calm.”

The combination of awkwardness, earnestness, sarcasm, and homoeroticism (“It is that you have the strength of a bull when you are roused, Hastings!") adds fun to an otherwise rather grim murder mystery.
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