Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie

In a quiet English village, a killer is about to strike. Again and again.

Officer Luke Fitzwilliam is on a train to London when he meets a strange woman. She claims there is a serial killer in the quiet village of Wychwood. He has already taken the lives of three people and is about claim his fourth victim.

Fitzwilliam dismisses this as the ramblings of an old woman. But within hours she is found dead. Crushed by a passing car.

And then the fourth victim is found.

Each death looks like an accident. But in Wychwood nothing is as it appears....

Anybody who can believe six impossible things before breakfast wins hands down at this game.
Luke Fitzwilliam, Murder is Easy

More about this story

Here Agatha Christie again turns away from her established detectives to try something new. A string of apparently unrelated deaths turns out to be devious multiple murder plot.

Perhaps tiring of her little Belgian, Murder is Easy is an early example of Agatha Christie dropping her famous detective in favour of the lesser known Superintendent Battle. Here she plays with one her favourite themes, devious multiple murders disguised as accidents. The story is considered to feature all the Agatha Christie staples of country village life.

It was adapted for TV in the US in 1982, featuring Bill Bixby as Luke and Helen Hayes as Livinia, who would later go on to star as Miss Marple. Clive Exton adapted the story for stage in 1993 and in 2008 it was included in the TV series Agatha Christie’s Marple. Miss Marple was played by Julia McKenzie while rising star Benedict Cumberbatch featured as Luke. In 2013, the story was dramatised for BBC Radio 4.

A new audiobook, read by Gemma Whelan, is now available in the UK and the US.