A classic detective novel. With all the positives and negatives that go with that. In some ways the first fifty pages -- before the murder -- were a better written, more interesting novel than what followed which relied on the typical devices of a locked room, an English manor house, and a solution that ultimately involved three different people involved in different aspects of the murder -- all unbeknownst to each other -- in a manner that strains credulity, to say the least. That said, I did keep reading with interest to the end and the coda, like the opening, renewed interest in the characters and their relationships.