Book Review: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

There is nothing more cosy and inviting than reading an Agatha Christie on a Thanksgiving weekend! It is not just the sense of time and place, as The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, a sequel to The Body in the Library featuring Miss Marple, excellently evokes, it has do with the writing too. For it unfolds at so leisurely a pace, perhaps reflective of the unhurried life back in the days, one might even begin to wonder if anything at all happens in St. Mary Mead. But a series of murders that transpire in the course of 350 odd pages does jog the sleepy village out of its reverie, and more importantly, it gives Miss Marple sufficient manna to chew on as she ponders over the fresh wave of mysterious deaths at Gossington Hall. The climax may not come as a shock to seasoned readers of mystery fiction, even then there is a lot to enjoy in this quaint little whodunit set in post World War II era, exploring themes of ageism and the not-so-welcome urban transformation of the village.