The Unexpected Guest: Novelisation [平装]

A young man, broken down in the fog, witnesses a murder he is asked to conceal...A full-length novel adapted by Charles Osborne from Agatha Christie's acclaimed play. When a stranger runs his car into a ditch in dense fog in South Wales and makes his way to an isolated house, he discovers a woman standing over the dead body of her wheelchair-bound husband, gun in her hand. She admits to murder, and the unexpected guest offers to help her concoct a cover story. But is it possible that Laura Warwick did not commit the murder after all? If so, who is she shielding? The victim's retarded young half-brother or his dying matriarchal mother? Laura's lover? Perhaps the father of the little boy killed in an accident for which Warwick was responsible? The house seems full of possible suspects! THE UNEXPECTED GUEST is considered to be one of the finest of Christie's plays. Hailed as 'another Mousetrap' when it opened on 12 August 1958 in the West End, it ran for 604 performances over the succeeding 18 months and has been staged many times around the world over the last 40 years.

From Publishers Weekly
As he did with Black Coffee (1998), Osborne has taken one of Christie's original play scripts and turned it into a (slight) novel. For those who can't see the play in production or who find a script dull or difficult reading, Osborne's adaptation may fill a need. But Osborne has added little flesh to the bones of the drama, which, with its single-room setting, absolutely retains the feel of a play merely masquerading as a novel rather than transformed into one. That's not all bad, as this novelization preserves the lightning-quick pace of the original. Christie's play had its premiere in 1958, yet remains undated by the passing years. When a stranger having car trouble at night on a lonely road enters a house through the French windows of its study, he finds an invalid who has been shot dead and a woman (his wife) standing nearby and holding a gun. Apparently on impulse, the stranger decides to help the woman hide her crime. Those two plus a small castAthe victim's mother; the victim's teenage half-brother; his housekeeper/secretary; and his male nurseAparade kaleidoscopically in and out of the study with two investigating police officers. Christie cleverly shifts suspicion and parcels out new facts and perspectives in marvelous fashion, proving ingeniously that the obvious isn't always obvious. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From AudioFile
This adaptation from the stage play by Christie biographer Charles Osborne gives Agatha Christie fans a new arena in which to hear her masterful mysteries. A traveler's car breaks down in the Scottish countryside, and, while seeking assistance, he stumbles upon a murder in a nearby home. And as is typical with Agatha Christie yarns, all is not as it seems. Lively and well-suited to the humorous undertones in Christie's work is Alexandra Thomas. Her narrative pace adeptly twists with each turn of plot. This audiobook is so faithful to Christie's writing style that fans may not even notice it's an adaptation. R.A.P. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
Like a martini--crisp, dry, sophisticated, habit-forming, ever-so-slightly dated--Christite's smoothly polished mysteries go down easy. This one was written as a stage play, first performed in 1958, and is here adapted into novel form by Osborne, who last year published a novelization of Christie's Black Coffee . Like Christie's endlessly running Mousetrap, the plot here is full of twists around a single room, with people who are not what they seem. Michael Starkwedder's car runs into a ditch in Wales in the fog, and when he opens the French doors of the nearest house he finds an attractive woman with a gun in her hand, and the very dead corpse of her husband in a wheelchair in the same room. Mentally deficient relatives, loyal and twisted servants, patient inspectors, family secrets, and dramatic dialogue will satisfy all devotees of Christie's neat plotting, even without either Poirot or Marple. Ready for the beach or the fireside. GraceAnne A. DeCandido --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews
Christie biographer Osborne's second novelization of a Christie play (Black Coffee, 1998) opens with a wonderfully arresting scene: engineer Michael Starkwedder, having run his car into a ditch while poking around the Welsh countryside looking at houses, enters Richard Warwick's house looking for help, only to find the man himself, a big-game hunter now confined to a wheelchair, shot to death. When Richard's wife Laura confesses to the killing, Starkwedder, struck by sympathy for her sufferings at the hands of this brute, encourages her to fake evidence against a fictitious intruder for Inspector Thomas and his quotation-spouting sergeant to find. Veteran readers of the author's work will watch in fascination, secure in the knowledge that Starkwedder and Laura aren't the only ones in the household playing fast and loose, and untroubled by the certainty that the other intimatesRichard's mother, his retarded half-brother, his housekeeper and valet, a neighbor standing for Parliamenthave no more moving parts than necessary to keep the twists coming. It's not clear what Christie, who got into playwriting in mid-career because she thought other writers' stage adaptations of her novels too slavish and unsimplified, would have thought of Osborne's close, stingy reworking of her 1958 play. Here, though, Osborne, working with much less creaky material than Black Coffee, manages a few surprises worthy of his master. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.