Agatha Christie’s The Seven Dials Mystery opens at a country weekend.  Lady Eileen, better known as Bundle, from The Secret of Chimneys, and some other Bright Young Things are staying with Mr and Mrs Coote, current renters of Chimneys. The story begins with what seems like a country-house prank, when the young guests buy several alarm clocks to go off at once and prank a late-sleeping friend.

This is also the fakeout of the book, since I thought I was reading an Agatha Christie country-house mystery, but it turns out to be a spy thriller. Soon we’re into political secrets and an underground secret spy ring known as the Seven Dials. I have to admit I don’t really like Christie’s political/spy thrillers nearly as much as the inheritance mysteries. I noticed this in Passenger to Frankfurt, too.

Some of it is that the country house inheritance mysteries can be charmingly dated, with a monogrammed glove or handkerchief spotted at the scene. But the spy ones are dated in goofy ways. These guys meet up wearing clock masks and calling each other by numbers, it is almost impossible to take it seriously or be even slightly worried about the conspiracy. There’s also a bit of dated ethnic stereotyping whenever we meet characters who aren’t British, which comes up a lot in an international spy ring story.

The fun parts of this book are when Bundle, curious and adorably manipulative, starts investigating. This works so well with the usual Christie misdirections.

There are a few of the zany coincidences, like when Bundle clips a guy with her car. Well, no, he was really shot before staggering into the road in front of a car driven by a woman investigating the crime, surviving long enough to mumble a clue. As one does. It’s a bit of a stretch, but I can accept some goofiness in a good mystery. Ordeal By Innocence hinges on a witness not coming forward quickly because he got conked on the head in a car crash totally unrelated to the inheritance or the murder mystery, then setting off for Antarctica as soon as he recovered from the post-crash amnesia.

The Seven Dials Mystery combines deception and Bright Young Things with light romance and heavy-handed political intrigue.  It’s fine, and I’m glad I read it, but it’s not my favorite Christie novel at all. That’s either The Murder of Roger Ackroyd or Crooked House for two novels that had me guessing the entire time, leading to stunning, unpredictable endings, or The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side as the only Christie novel in which I successfully spotted the villain and motive early on.