After the Funeral

by Agatha Christie

Richard Abernethie died an old and wealthy man, but it was only after his funeral that she said it - that he had been murdered. Cora Lansquenet. The sister of Richard Abernethie.

But then Cora had always been tactless! Saying the most outrageous things. Things to be ignored... people who crave attention should be ignored! Yet somehow Cora had an uncanny ability of hitting upon hidden truths...

When Cora Lansquenet is discovered murdered no long time after the funeral - the victim of a grisly axe attack - the evidence that her assailant was a burglar seems hardly sufficient to explain the ferocity of the attack. What type of burglar could find motive enough to murder a householder even as she lay in her own bed?

After the Funeral is a surprising tale with several interesting characters, but too full of the standard fare of murder mystery novels to be highly original and with an elaborate plot leading to an implausible resolution.

The novel is cohesive but lacks depth. The identity of the murderer is exposed by Hercules Poirot's examination of a number of fairly random clues.

Published by HarperCollins and read by Hugh Fraser.