It is now 1927 and Agatha Christie is on her way to the Canary Islands ostensibly to have a holiday, but on an assignment from the Secret Intelligence Service to investigate the death of one of their agents, Douglas Greene. But not is all rest as a suicide on the outgoing ship disturbs her peace.
An enjoyable mystery, well-written, though Christie does seem a bit naive to think that any theories she has about events should automatically be believed by the police.
A NetGalley Book ( )

Following the death of her mother, the collapse of her marriage to Archie Christie, and her sensational disappearance for two weeks, Agatha Christie is now on a trip to Tenerife, officially for rest and recovery, and to finish her latest book. The Mystery of the Blue Train.

Unofficially, she is travelling at the behest of British Special Agent Davison, to investigate the death of another intelligence officer, Douglas Greene. Greene was found dead in a cave, drained of his blood and partially mummified. She is not to take any risks. She is only gathering information. Davison will also be there, under an assumed name.

What could possibly go wrong?

Things start going wrong while she's still on the ship carrying her there. A young woman, apparently the wife of another passenger, flees from her husband's mistress, goes to the stern of the liner, and leaps over the side, while Agatha and the husband's mistress, sculptor Helen Harte, watch, unable to stop her. Less catastrophically, there are also two absolute bores among the passengers, a woman who can't stop talking about her experiences on the Titanic, and a man who is going to revolutionize literature by writing down every single thing he sees and hears.

Once in Tenerife, she soon encounters George Grenville, an rather sinister-seeming occultist along the lines of Aleister Crowley; his very subdued daughter, Violet; Violet's beloved, but unfortunately dying of tuberculosis, Edward Ffosse; and other hotel guests and local English residents.

She also discovers that no one and nothing is as it seems, starting with Davison, who has his own huge secret connected to Douglas Greene. Her knowledge of poisons becomes highly relevant, when tiresome would-be literary giant Howard Winniatt is found dead. Grenville has extensive garden of poisonous plants, and library well-stocked with tomes on the subject, and...there's something about Winniatt's death that is disturbingly similar to the suicide of Gina Trevalyan, on the ship to Tenerife.

As she struggles to put together all the facts, and figure out what vital clues she's overlooking, her fellow guests on the island seem stranger and stranger--and she herself becomes both a target and a suspect.

It's nicely intriguing, and this is a "playing fair" mystery, where the reader does have all the clues.

An enjoyable read. Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, and I am reviewing it voluntarily. ( )

This is an excellent murder mystery featuring Agatha Christie as an amateur detective. It's set mostly in the Canary Islands in the 1920's, although the action begins on a cruise ship when Agatha witnesses a woman jumping overboard. She is actually on a mission for the British security service to investigate the death of their agent in what is now Tenerife. Things go badly from the time she lands there and two more murders are committed. She even manages to get arrested, accused of stealing a string of pearls, and spends a night in a jail cell.
It's an exciting read, bordering on being a thriller, and of course there are a couple of red herrings to throw Agatha (and readers) off the scent of the murderer. Finally the real murderer is unmasked in a dramatic fashion, involving gunplay and shots being fired. Even the identity of the jewel thief is revealed and the whodunit comes to an entertaining and satisfying conclusion.
This book is the second of a series and can stand on its own, despite many references to the action and characters in the first one.
Recommended. ( )

fter reading A Talent for Murder, I was eager to get back into the trenches with Mrs. Christie. A Different kind of evil takes place just two months after the end of the first novel. I do recommend you reading it first. You may read this novel as a standalone, but I think it would increase your enjoyment of the story to read this series from the beginning.

Mrs. Christie is working with Special Agent Davidson to solve the murder of his colleague, Douglas Greene, whose death was peculiar. She boards a ship heading to the beautiful Canary Islands, where Greene's body was discovered, only to find that what should be a relaxing experience is anything but relaxing.

Christie is surround by a cast of interesting characters that all seem to be a bit shady at times, not to mention the suicide she witnessed a few days into her trip. Once she gets to the island, things become trickier than she thought it would be. Bodies start piling up, secrets are revealed, and even worse than that, Christie is having a hard time writing her latest novel.

Andrew Wilson has created a wonderful series with one of the most beloved authors of all time. I love that he made the Queen of Mystery a character in a mystery of his own. It kind of makes you wonder where she got all her fantastic ideas for the novels she wrote. This is a great series that mystery lovers will enjoy!

Read more at http://www.toreadornottoread.net/2018/03/review-different-kind-of-evil.html#j7bE... ( )

KIRKUS REVIEW:

"Free at last of the scandal of her notorious 1926 disappearance—though not quite yet of her adulterous spouse—Agatha Christie sails for the Canary Islands at the behest of the secret agent who helped rescue her from those complications (A Talent for Murder, 2017).

The first death, that of Secret Intelligence Service agent Douglas Greene, precedes Christie’s passage. In fact, it’s what makes John Davison press her to go to Tenerife in the first place. Nor does the second wait for her arrival. As Christie looks on in horror, Gina Trevelyan, a wronged wife who’s stowed away aboard the Gelria, launches herself over the side of the ship in a frenzy of grief, her body lost forever. Sculptor Helen Hart, the other woman whose affair with Guy Trevelyan has brought her to the ship as well, baffles Christie by taking moral responsibility for Gina’s death shortly after announcing, “I’m pleased the bitch is dead.” The Canaries themselves, home to sinister occultist Gerard Grenville, are equally dangerous for two of Christie’s fellow passengers from the Gelria and indeed for the celebrated novelist herself, who ends up hiding in a closet from which she watches as another passenger’s pearls are stolen by someone she can readily identify but declines to do so, even when Inspector Artemi Narciso Núñez arrests Christie herself for the theft and throws her in jail. The only way she’ll be able to help in solving Douglas Greene’s murder, it seems, will be if Wilson abates his fondness for local color long enough to allow His Majesty’s most unlikely secret agent to decide that it’s high time to link all the felonies that clutter this tangled tale.

The problem with casting a famous real-life mystery writer as your detective is that you can’t help inviting comparisons between your work and hers. It’s no shame to say that Wilson can’t stand up to such a comparison, but it’s no recommendation either."

This book was gawd-awful....

This male author used the voice of a happy-go-lucky younger woman of a much later era. There is Not-One-Iota of any similarity between the writing of Agatha Christie and this author, nor does his character resemble in any-way-shape-or-form the real Dame Agatha....

I couldn't stand this book, it was weak and over-the-top unrealistic...

I give it a pass..... as in Pass This One By ( )