The king of good times may be Kingfisher but the queen of good times is certainly Agatha Christie! Moreover, in this story there are 7 dials showing 7 different ‘times’!
Agatha Christie:
She needs no introduction! In polls of most popular mystery books at different websites, her books usually occupy prominent positions! ‘And then there were none’, ‘The Murder of Roger Ackoryd’, ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ and ‘Witness for the Prosecution’ are few of her most loved books till date. It’s astounding to know that a little girl who never went to a formal school but had vivid imaginative power grew up to be such a fascinating writer loved by one and all!
Story:
Lord Caterham and his daughter nicknamed Bundle(the protagonist) have rented out their ancient mansion at Chimneys to a businessman Oswald Coote and his melancholy wife. The Cootes have seven youngsters staying at their place on a lazy vacation. Out of these guests, Gerry Wade is the laziest who sleeps till noon everyday! Hence the other six decide to play a prank on him. They hide 8 alarm clocks in his room one night after he drops off to sleep. Each alarm is set to sound successively, the first one starting at 6.30 am. The alarms play their part well but the prank turns ghastly as Gerry has died in his sleep at night long before the alarms sounded. He has died because of an overdose of a sleeping medicine. Why did such a regular sleepy head require a sleeping dose on that day? In an incomplete letter written by him addressed to his step sister Loraine just before his death, there is a mention of some ‘7 dials’ business. Queerly, one alarm clock out of the 8 that were used in the prank is suddenly missing. Jimmy, Bill (2 of Gerry’s friends), Bundle (the adventure crazy damsel) and Loraine don’t take long to realize that Gerry has been murdered and they are determined to find out the culprit and the motive behind all this. Is the murderer one among the innocent looking youngsters?
To make matters complicated, one more youth among these guests is shot at. ‘7 Dials’ are the last words uttered by his lips.
The ‘7 dials’ is apparently an international gang of seven shrewd thieves out to steal major inventions by scientists of the world. Their current motive is to steal the formula to make a revolutionary wire strong as metals. Curiously, none of the gang members know each other by face. Whenever they meet at a club called 7 dials, each of them hides his/her face beneath a mask showing a time on the dial. They also address each other as 1 o’clock, 2 o’clock, etc. The last of them - Mr. 7 o’clock is missing from each meeting. Is there a familiar friend beneath any of these masks?
An elite party is hosted to ceremoniously hand over the invention formula to the Air minister which is where the ‘7 dials’ seem to be planning their attack. A threatening letter received by the host of this party sets our young team to action. Is it so simple to catch the sly culprit? While our young team is struggling to find the truth with the help of Superintendent Battle, the gang seems to be at their peak of activity planning actions in the middle of the night. Will our team emerge victorious and unscathed?
My opinion-
The story starts off grippingly with the first murder taking place within the first few pages under wary circumstances, but the narrative loses charm for a while afterwards. Half way through, when the party is hosted, the action soars up and this part is beautifully narrated with each character’s adventurous experience set in separate chapters without which there would have been immense confusion. The climax revealing the actual motive of the 7 dials is awe-striking because of which the book earns 4 stars! Too many characters forced me to suspect so many of them. As usual, I never suspected the one that had to be suspected first! The sad part is that boring, irrelevant and romantic conversations interspersed in the otherwise wonderful thriller brutally take off some charm of the story. A sadder part was that, shockingly, I found a couple of typo errors in this novel (like ‘she was a gloomy women’).
This book written in 1929 still holds its timelessness intact and is definitely worth a read (or two to understand better!). Highly recommended.
Friends, please suggest some good thrillers for me while you comment! I’m in a mood for them. :)