The Murder on the Links — The Companion Edition (Companion Classics)

Poirot's second case — and the one where Christie sends him to France and gives him a rival.

The Murder on the Links (1923) is Agatha Christie's second Hercule Poirot novel: a millionaire who wrote to Poirot in fear of his life is found stabbed in a newly dug grave on the golf links beside his French villa, and Poirot must out-detect Giraud of the Paris Sûreté — the celebrated champion of clues and footprints — with nothing but his little grey cells and a twenty-two-year-old Paris crime he cannot stop thinking about. This Companion Classics edition prints the complete 1923 text, taken from Project Gutenberg #58866 and collated against the Standard Ebooks proofread text and a photographic scan of the Dell reprint of the Dodd, Mead text — eight readings restored where both collation partners agree against the Gutenberg file.

Inside: an introduction on Christie in 1923 and Poirot's second case; a Who's Who of the Villa Geneviève; four explainers (the French setting, the Sûreté, and two ways of detecting; crossing to France in 1923; money and customs in francs and pounds; the golf links as the scene of the crime); a short life of Agatha Christie; an honest note on the period text; a reading schedule; an appendix on Poirot in 1923; and thirty-six discussion questions in four spoiler-fenced meetings plus a whole-book set — the culprit and the second-crime twists stay fenced until the final meeting.

The novel's text is public domain in the United States (Agatha Christie died in 1976, so it remains in copyright in life-plus-seventy countries — this edition is published for the United States first). All companion material is original to this edition. A printable Book Club Kit is available in this store.