I like it. Not my favourite, but I like it, despite the fact that in it there isn't any major detective. A man going to London by train meets an old lady that reminds him of his dear aunt, and she tells him she's going to Scotland Yard because a series of accidental deaths in her home town are actually murders, and she's sure she knows the person responsible, and also who the next victim will be, the town doctor. He doesn't believe her, as usual thinking old ladies have a lot of imagination and they all go around thinking either someone is killing them or that someone is killing someone else... but the next day he reads on the newspaper that she died, run over by a car before she could talk to the police! He's sorry, but also worried, and when later on he finds out that doctor she talked about has really died, he starts thinking that she was right, that they are all murders, and he wants to investigate. I missed Poirot very much, I admit, because he was much smarter than this protagonist, Luke. He'd have never made such puerile mistakes. The little love story was not captivating I'm afraid, it doesn't seem real.
Spoilers
Half of the book was sometimes a bit boring because it was obvious that Luke was going on a false track to start with. He kept considering possible suspects only the men, not the women or the kids, just the men, but the first time he said there's a man killing people I thought, why a man? I don't remember her talking about a man. I checked and yes, she only talked of someone, a person, not necessarily a man, and given the way those people had died, I mean you don't need to be a grown-up man to push someone in the river or to poison someone else. The consequence of this was that his whole process of investigation kept going around the town's men and where they were, and if they could have done it, and why, and it was a bit boring because it was so limited! I don't remember when I read this for the first time, but back then I probably didn't notice, or thought there was a reason for thinking that, or something. Now, after so many books and series on crimes, this was too easy a thing to notice! It doesn't mean that I guessed right away who did it, but I got there in time. As always I had no will of stopping and thinking about it, trying to solve the mistery... I prefer to keep reading, and let them tell me, it's more fun this way. :-)
I liked the bit about the title, when Luke told the old lady it was "rather hard to do a lot of murders and get away with it, eh?", and she replied " no no, my dear boy, that's where you're wrong. It's very easy to kill.. so long as no one suspects you. And you see, the person in question is just the last person one would suspect"... but of course this in itself is an important clue. Luke was wasting time investigating so much that Ellsworth just because he didn't like him. Poirot would have never made the mistake of judging and wishing to be guilty the one he didn't like. The fact that he was so strange and many people didn't like him is exactly why we should not consider him a suspect at all. He clearly fits the 'first person one suspects' category! Also the fact he kept saying 'man' while the old woman had only said 'a person' was a definite clue that the murderer was not a man, and since we didn't see any kids, the only possibility was a woman. There were a few of them to consider...
I also liked when Bridget asked Luke if he liked her. She knows he loves her, but wants to be sure he likes her too. I loved this scene because it's true, they're not the same thing, sometimes people love someone they don't even like, for one reason or another. It's so very true, I know it is.
ITA è troppo facile
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