Is any bowler more dreaded by the batsmen of detection than Mrs. Christie? Towards Zero will get a great many wickets, or I'm heavily mistaken in the acumen of my friends. Halfway through the book I've asked them "Who did it?" Three-quarters way through I ask them again—and the names they reluctantly murmur are never the same both times. It is not a trick of Mrs. Christie's: it's her devilish art. There are about six subjects in Towards Zero, and she focuses our attention on each in turn. Some look too guilty; some look too innocent. Some have an opportunity, but where's the motive? Some have a motive, but where's the opportunity? So it goes on. The reader wobbles and wavers, and shrinks from a decision: and Mrs. Christie quietly bowls you out…. [The] struggle to coach victims against Mrs. Christie is utterly hopeless.

The scene of...