Fantastic mystery. I've definitely read it before, but it ws such a treat to reread this one, because I had totally forgotten all the who-done-its.
Astonishing book, really- the heroine (in 1922!) (book published in 1924) makes her way to South Africa on her own, using all that is left of a small inheritace from her anthropoligist father, and upon getting to South Africa, promptly involves herself in all sorts of fun and frisky intrigue, up to and well beyond the point of social acceptability. She even surfs!
This is the kind of thing that makes me wish that English majors didn't focus so much on the "good" writers- like that bloody Virginia Woolf or that godawful Gertrude Stein. I mean, you want feminist literature from the 1920's? Look at Agatha Christie. Seriously- her female characters kick 40 kinds of ass, and there's no wan pining for "A Room with A View" from them- they go off to find a view, and if there isn't one, I bet they'd knock a hole in the wall to make one. And no "A rose is a rose is a rose" idiocy either. I do loathe that kind of pretentious crap. I do indeed.
Toast to Agatha Christie! (Who, may I point out, spent ages mucking about in what is now Iraq on archaeological digs at all the Tells. Nice going, girl!)
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