The mousetrap by Agatha Christie

It's not a novel, because it's written for the theatre, so there's no narration, just characters talking. I liked it. I read it still has a great success in Britain, and that doesn't surprise me much, if well played I'd like to watch it too. The characters are very alive, but also deep. It's all set in a house that Mollie and her husband Giles have transformed into a hotel. They receive a few guests here: Christopher Wren, very young and lively, always chatting like a child; Mrs Boyle, an insufferable woman no one likes because she was already criticizing everything before settling in: the house, the service, the guests, Mollie and Giles, she has something to say against anyone; Miss Casewell, a mysterious girl who's lived abroad a long time; Major Metcalf, a nice quiet man, and Mr Paravicini, a man whose car broke and therefore he took a room. The weather is awful, they barely manage to arrive, it's snowing so much the roads are now closed. There's been a murder in the city, and they now receive the visit of a policeman saying that a note lead them to believe the next victims are here in the house. This sergeant Trotter speaks of an old case, when three children were taken away from their alcoholic mother and given to a couple that turned out to be awful people. They treated the children very badly, and one of them died. It turns out Mrs Boyle was the judge that gave the children to the Stanning couple, and she's the first one to die. In a way I think this is good for the success of the play, that the one to die is the one nobody likes.
Everything becomes very real now for the house guests. Trotter warns them there might be a third victim, because of a nursery rhyme talking of three little blind mouses. Meanwhile, Giles is very jealous of Wren and Mollie, even more so when she defends him. We discover she was the young teacher at the kids' school, and the poor dead boy had written a letter to her asking for help, but she was ill and didn't receive it, and couldn't help him. I think this is why, somehow, she now wanted to help young Wren. Trotter turns out to be the murderer, the brother that survived, but when he tries to kill Mollie he's stopped by his sister Miss Casewell and Metcalf, the real policeman coming to investigate incognito. The play ends leaving the audience smiling, probably even laughing, because last line and action is Molly running back to the kitchen where her lunch is burning. This is another point in favor of this play: to leave the spectators with a smile. I mean, obviously, that's how plays work.

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