Paperback 1152: Dell 454 (1st ptg, 1950)
Title: Murder on the Links
Author: Agatha Christie
Cover artist: Al Brulé
Condition: 7/10
Value: $10
- I'm sorry but the freakiest thing about this cover isn't Poirot standing in the doorway, it's whatever that get-up is that she's got on, holy cow.
- Carhop? Ballerina? Working as a waitress in a cocktail bar?
- Those are the gapingest fishnets I ever did see. Reasonable-sized fish could escape through those holes.
- Classic Fear Hand! Or else she's telling Poirot, "Just give me five minutes, you impatient Walloon!"
- In other news, I think 2026 might be My Christie Year. I know a year isn't nearly enough to read all her novels, but I'm hoping maybe I can polish off a dozen, at least.
Best things about this back cover:
- Mapback!! Paperback design peaked with the mapback. All downhill since then. Every book should have a map on the back. If I started a publishing co., this would be the one and possibly only thing I cared about.
- Look at the detail. Tiny cabanas and beach chairs and umbrellas and everything.
- LOL "Bench." Thanks, map!
- Love the perspective on this one, with Calais visible in the far distance. And clouds! It's lovely, really.
- "Copes" is a weird word to describe what Poirot does. He's solving a case, not surviving a week-end with his in-laws.
Page 123~
But at that moment a stir and bustle was heard outside, and our old friend, the examining magistrate, accompanied by his clerk and M. Bex, with the doctor behind them, came bustling in.OK, a couple things. First, M. Bex, cool name. Second, was there no editor to say "absolutely not" to the repetition of "bustle"? "Bustling" almost seems like an intentional comical callback to "stir and bustle," but if that were so, I'd expect all the people to come "stirring and bustling in." "Bustling" on its own gives the appearance of laziness (both authorial and editorial).
~RP
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