Mini Review – At Bertram’s Hotel

From Goodreads:

Miss Marple is taking a holiday in London and has chosen Bertram’s Hotel for its traditional decor, good service and unmistakable atmosphere of danger. However not even Miss Marple can foresee the violent chain of events that will soon occur.

This is one of the proper Ms Marple Mysteries where she is front and centre pretty much from the beginning. It is somewhat unusual for Christie to have her detective so involved, usually only appearing in the third act of the book or even not arriving till the final chapters. We follow what appears to be a missing persons investigation, but as we dive deeper and deeper it seems there is more behind the scenes at this old-world hotel and there is much more complex machinations at foot.

What I like about the Ms Marple books and about this one in particular is they combine the professional police investigation with Ms Marple’s knowledge of human nature. These two come together perfectly with Ms Marple playing the expert witness in this particular case. There are many twists and turns, various avenues of investigation but also some more relaxed scenes of getting to know Mr Marple that made this a great read.