The Bloodstained Pavement - Agatha Christie

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AUTHOR: Agatha Christie

SERIES: Miss Marple, Short Story #4
GENRE: Cosy Mystery.
RATING: 3.75 stars.

Finally an interesting story in this collection!
This edition of the Tuesday Night Club comes from Joyce Lemprière. She narrates an incident from five years back, where she saw unexplained blood stains on the pavement, and heard of a death just a few days later. Local superstition links the two events. Miss Marple explains the coincidence.

The writing was a bit confusing in this one (partly because of Joyce being so haphazard in her narration of the events), but when you focus on it, the story is pretty enjoyable and also easy to deduce. In fact, I think that’s one reason why I enjoyed this tale because the resolution didn’t spring out of nowhere but came from the clues scattered within the earlier events. My guess was right, plus I couldn’t find any major unexplained logical gaps. The only negative other than Joyce’s choppy narration is that one element of the resolution is too farfetched to be believable.

This story is part of 'The Thirteen Problems' collection.

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