Welcome to the third chapter of Dining with the Dame. If you haven’t read chapters one and two, this is a series about the food found in the novels of Agatha Christie. Murder on the Links is the third Christie novel, published in 1923. This one, let me tell you had me worried. There are plenty of mentions of dejeuners (it is set mostly in France) but no actual food until towards the very end when finally, Poirot and Hastings sit down to “an excellent omelette”. Thank goodness! My back up, given the proximity of a golf course, was going to be a Golf Pie. I would totally eat it but I think it may be a little too basic B for Poirot! Luckily I was able to choose an Omelette Berrichonne as a more classy alternative!
Murder on the Links – The Plot
After meeting a charming girl on a train from Paris to Calais, Hastings returns to London eager to tell Poirot about the love of his life but Poirot is having none of it. He is bored and irritated by his current cases. He then reads a letter from Paul Renauld imploring him to come to France as soon as poss. They arrive at Merlinville to find Renauld has been murdered on the golf course next to his home by masked men who took him from his home leaving his wife tied up in the house.
There is:
- a sexy neighbour and her mother, possibly the mistress of the dead man
- a disinherited son
- shonky South American business dealings
- rivalry between Poirot and the French Inspector Giraud
- a crime from the past
- another dead body found in the shed and
- Hastings’ romance with Dulcie Duveen who will go on to become his wife
There is no shortage of action in this one! I whizzed through it in a couple of days. I am really enjoying these reads!
The Covers
This has become one of my favourite parts of this series. I love seeing how the covers have changed over time. Here is a selection of them and there is not a dud in the bunch. Well, maybe the one in the bottom left corner but all the rest are crackers!
I love the top row second from the left and second from the right which features a Magritte style man with a goofball head. And of course the second from the right on the bottom row with its pulp fiction cover!
Do you have a favourite?
The Recipe
“Finally…we set out for the town. It was past our usual hour of dining, and we were both famished. The first restaurant we came to assuaged the pangs of hunger with an excellent omelette, and an equally excellent entrecote to follow”
Murder on the Links, Agatha Christie
The book did not give much away in terms of what kind of omelette the excellent omelette was so I had to improvise. I turned to the expert, Elizabeth David. And also followed her example by pairing my omelette with a glass of wine!
I used David’s recipe for an Omelette Berrichonne because I had a leek in the fridge and mint in the garden!
Here are some suggestions on how to make the perfect omelette. And here are Elizabeth David’s additions for the Omelette Berrichonne.
I was a little bit unsure about the mint here but it worked really well! Delicious!
Other Food Mentioned in Murder on The Links
The next read is The Man in the Brown Suit. I am already about half way through as it is another page turner…or whatever the ebook version of a page turner is!
Hope you are having a wonderful week.
Stay safe friends!
