Mrs. McGinty's Dead, Agatha Christie
Who would have wanted to murder an elderly woman like Mrs. McGinty? She'd worked all of her life 'in service' for others and even now didn't seem to have too much of value in her small cottage in the quiet village of Broadhinney. Why, she even had to take in lodgers to help pay the bills. As the story unfolds it is Mrs. McGinty's lodger, James Bentley, that is convicted of his landlady's death.
The investigating policeman, Superintendent Spence, is troubled. He has a gut instinct that despite all the evidence, Bentley is innocent. To help him save an innocent man from death, Spence calls in his old friend, Hercule Poirot. Poirot agrees to come our of retirement to search for clues to this desperate situation and possibly save an innocent man from the gallows.
It seems that whoever killed Mrs. McGinty was looking for something. Her house had been completely ransacked. What could Mrs. McGinty have had that could make her vulnerable to murder? Did Bentley find the meager 'life savings' of the victim and then bury them under a nearby rock only to be easily discovered by the police?
The path to the solution to this mystery is full of twists and turns. It is also fun to see Poirot squirm as he 'suffers' through a stay at the Summerhayes' home while he is working on the case. You see, Mrs. McGinty, had been the housekeeper for the Summerhayes family and without her, the household routine and food preparation has fallen apart. Poirot who loves order and precision, finds himself living amidst chaos and offered ill-prepared meals instead of the gourmet dining he dreams about. Another plus to this book is an appearance by Ariadne Oliver. Mrs. Oliver is, as Poirot fans know, another of Agatha Christie's characters...a mystery writer that is often considered an alter ego for the Queen of Crime herself.
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