The cover page is adapted from An Interior, a painting completed circa 1937 by William Benjamin Chamberlin. The cover and title pages feature the League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by The League of Moveable Type. www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
The Seven Dials Mystery
章节(34)
- I: On Early Rising 0:00
- II: Concerning Alarm Clocks 21:28
- III: The Joke That Failed 31:51
- IV: A Letter 49:34
- V: The Man in the Road 1:04:09
- VI: Seven Dials Again 1:15:11
- VII: Bundle Pays a Call 1:27:01
- VIII: Visitors for Jimmy 1:36:24
- IX: Plans 1:48:25
- X: Bundle Visits Scotland Yard 2:03:02
- XI: Dinner with Bill 2:13:35
- XII: Inquiries at Chimneys 2:27:50
- XIII: The Seven Dials Club 2:46:39
- XIV: The Meeting of the Seven Dials 3:00:38
- XV: The Inquest 3:14:31
- XVI: The House Party at the Abbey 3:27:33
- XVII: After Dinner 3:42:46
- XVIII: Jimmy’s Adventures 3:54:33
- XIX: Bundle’s Adventures 4:03:31
- XX: Loraine’s Adventures 4:13:32
- XXI: The Recovery of the Formula 4:24:45
- XXII: The Countess Radzky’s Story 4:39:47
- XXIII: Superintendent Battle in Charge 4:57:52
- XXIV: Bundle Wonders 5:12:31
- XXV: Jimmy Lays His Plans 5:25:47
- XXVI: Mainly About Golf 5:42:54
- XXVII: Nocturnal Adventure 5:51:04
- XXVIII: Suspicions 6:01:45
- XXIX: Singular Behaviour of George Lomax 6:14:20
- XXX: An Urgent Summons 6:29:30
- XXXI: The Seven Dials 6:44:51
- XXXII: Bundle Is Dumbfounded 6:56:31
- XXXIII: Battle Explains 7:03:11
- XXXIV: Lord Caterham Approves 7:24:58
The country mansion Chimneys, the setting of Christie’s earlier novel The Secret of Chimneys, has been rented out by Lord and Lady Coote, who are hosting a weekend party. One of the guests, Gerry Wade, has a habit of oversleeping, so his friends decide to play a prank on him by surrounding his bed with eight alarm clocks. Naturally, the next morning he is found murdered in his bed, with one of the alarm clocks missing—leaving only seven dials in his bedroom.
Eileen “Bundle” Caterham, the daughter of the owner of Chimneys and one of the characters in The Secret of Chimneys, joins Superintendent Battle in investigating the crime. Her doggedness leads her to a scheme of grand industrial espionage—and a mysterious secret society.
Unlike The Secret of Chimneys, The Seven Dials Mystery met with a middling reception, with contemporary reviewers complaining about a lack of the vivacity that made Secret so charming, an almost-unguessable solution to the mystery, and an unlikely ending to the novel. Christie wrote it in what she called her “plutocratic era,” when she favored easily and quickly written stories that could be sold for very large sums to American publishers.