Why Didn’t They Ask Evans by Agatha Christie

Val Penny ♦ January 24, 2014 ♦ 1 Comment

Agatha Christie is one of my favourite authors of all time.  She writes in my favourite genre and keeps the twist in the tale in every book she writes.  Her books are simply marvellous and so it is with this novel ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans?’.  The protragonists Bobby and Frankie are much younger than Christie’s usual heroes. This gives the book a very different feel.   The novel was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club in September 1934.

The plot, like any Agatha Christie book, is brilliant and grasping.   The words ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans’ uttered by a man just before dying, which seem pretty meaningless, end up being the most important key to the whole book.   The book is fast paced, interesting, gripping and humorous at times.

The story starts when a handsome stranger plummets to his death from a cliff.  It could have been an accident or  something more sinister.  There are young adventurers Bobby Jones and Francis Derwit’s whose suspicions are aroused: especially since the man’s dying words were so peculiar: Why didn’t they ask Evans? Bobby and Francis would love to know.   However, they ask the wrong people.   This sends the amateur sleuths running for their lives.  They also embark on a wild and deadly pursuit to discover who Evans is, what it was he wasn’t asked, and why the mysterious inquiry has put their own lives in mortal danger.

It is a very clever book and quite funny in places.  Neither does Ms Christie leave the mystery lover hanging.  This book has everything you could want: a chase for an unknown murderer, a near-death poisoning for Bobby, multiple disguises for Bobby and Frankie, a plot to do with mistaken identity, a subplot of a mental hospital and a lunatic patient, a scheme of faking a will, a murder in a locked room, a scheme with impersonations, and a thriving drug business.

If you have never read an Agatha Christie book, start now.  This is definitely worth a read!

Other Agatha Christie books reviewed on this site are found here:  bookreviewstoday.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/peril-at-end-h…gatha-christie/, bookreviewstoday.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/evil-under-the…gatha-christie/, ‎‎bookreviewstoday.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/the-hollow-by-agatha-christie/, https://bookreviewstoday.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/five-little-pi…gatha-christie/