There is a reason that Agatha Christie is celebrated for her country-house murder mysteries and not for her international espionage thrillers. While the former show her strength and originality as a writer, the latter can’t help but feel slightly derivative and, at times, a little absurd.

The Murder on the Links contains a number of features that were to become Christie tropes – the watch with the broken face; the use of disguises; and the desire of a murderer to repeat their crime.

Awash with red herrings and a cornucopia of clues, this book acts as a form of ‘preface’ to the stories that were to follow, introducing the reader to those elements that would become quintessentially Christie.