Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Death Comes As the End

Death Comes As the End


Many years ago I would not read mystery novels. But after having read most of the world's great literature and exhausted all of my favorite fiction writers I picked up a book by the biggest name in mysteries and got hooked. It wasn't until I read all of Ms. Christie's works and began to read other, better mystery writers such as Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh, Robert Barnard, and Americans like John D. MacDonald and Ross MacDonald that I realized Ms. Christie's body of work was highly overrated and offered at best maybe 8 or 10 novels that were worth the time to read them.

"Death Comes as the End" is my favorite and one of the very few of hers that left a lasting impression. It's atypical of her usual repetitive, formulaic and often silly stories.
She was way ahead of her time with this one, and accidently hit a previously unexplored vein, the historical mystery which many years later has been used to such grand effect by Ellis Peters, Lindsey Davis, Lauren Haney, Michael Jecks, Steven Saylor, Leonard Tourney and many others. This is the book that started it all and its definitely one of Christies best.