Andrew Wilson’s I Saw Him Die (Simon and Schuster, 2021, £8.99) is the fourth of Wilson’s detective novels featuring Agatha Christie and written from her perspective. Set in Scotland in 1930 at Dallach Lodge near a ruined castle, the plot hinges on the death of Robin Kinmuir, the estate owner. The novel has strengths and weaknesses, and the first sufficiently outweigh the second. In the fashion of Christie, there is superb misdirection and the plotting is very good indeed, with an ingenious murder and a first-rate series of twists thereafter. Less positively, the handling of prose is not of Christie’s quality. There are a few foolish comparisons, most notably, “’It’s all very Castle of Otranto,’ whispered Davison as we stepped out of the car. ‘In fact, it looks the perfect place for a murder’” (p. 9). Readers of The Castle of Otranto will note that the two novels have nothing in common. More seriously, there is at times a plodding and worthy character to the prose. Yet, it is difficult to capture the essence of Christie’s brilliance as a stylist and Wilson deserves much praise for trying to get inside her personality and producing an effective novel accordingly.
