The author here - for the second time, I haven't read his first attempt - tries to write a hommage, a pastiche, a parody, whatever, of a Christie whodunnit of the golden age. Well, he doesn't succeed. The jokes are lame and belaboured, the tension is almost non-existent, the characters are well boring, it was truly a miracle I finished this one at all, and only with one end in mind, to warn others about delving into this book. Try "The real Inspector Hound" by Tom Stoppard or, indeed, read the real thing, the Christies and Parkers and Allinghams. They did not deserve this unfunny, parasitic "hommage".