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cocoonofbooks 's review for:
Ordeal by Innocence
by Agatha Christie
A clever premise: A man comes back from an Antarctic expedition and realizes he is the one able to supply an alibi too late for a young man who died in prison after being convicted of killing his mother. The family is not grateful for this posthumous name-clearing; no one liked Jacko, so they were content for him to take the blame, but now they must look at one another with suspicion. As with most Christie novels, I was not able to arrive at the solution on my own, even though the pieces were all there in retrospect. Even though most of the book involves the family nervously trying to go about their life while three different men try to solve the crime, I still found it well paced and plotted and read it in just a few days.
What's unfortunate is that the plot of this one revolves heavily around the fact that the victim adopted all five of her children, and much is made of her not being their "real" mother. Characters monologue at length about the unnatural relationship between mother and children (while repeatedly reminding each other that they weren't her "real" children) and how not bearing children out of her own body was somehow responsible for this woman becoming obsessive and overbearing as a mother. Certainly that was not an unusual position at the time this book was published (along with the comments made about Tina, the "half-caste" child who is always described as "dark" whenever she's mentioned), but it made it unpleasant to read nonetheless.
Aside from the unfortunate marks of its time, this book is a solid Christie mystery.
What's unfortunate is that the plot of this one revolves heavily around the fact that the victim adopted all five of her children, and much is made of her not being their "real" mother. Characters monologue at length about the unnatural relationship between mother and children (while repeatedly reminding each other that they weren't her "real" children) and how not bearing children out of her own body was somehow responsible for this woman becoming obsessive and overbearing as a mother. Certainly that was not an unusual position at the time this book was published (along with the comments made about Tina, the "half-caste" child who is always described as "dark" whenever she's mentioned), but it made it unpleasant to read nonetheless.
Aside from the unfortunate marks of its time, this book is a solid Christie mystery.