Having never read an Agatha Christie before, I wasn't certain of what to expect. However, I was extremely impressed! This is the first mystery I've read where the culprit wasn't completely obvious until the VERY end (as opposed to halfway through, or worse). The only negative would be that due to the age of the book itself, one ocassionally came across words no longer in the traditional vernacular. That said, it wasn't a major distraction.