The Murder on the Links was Agatha Christie’s second Poirot novel, the second told by Arthur Hastings, and the second, for me, to be performed by Richard Armitage.
Again, Armitage does a fantastic job here, even with the women’s voices. Murder, Styles and the short story collection Poirot Investigates are in the public domain here in the US and audio and text versions of all 3 will vary widely in quality. Armitage’s version, published in 2020, is spot-on.
The Story In The Murder On The Links
Poirot receives a letter from a man named Paul Renauld, who begs him to travel to France to help him. Poirot does so but arrives too late. Renauld was murdered, police say, during a home invasion in which his wife, Eloise, was bound and gagged, and Renauld was stabbed in the back and dumped in a shallow grave on the adjoining golf course.
Leading the investigation is Monsieur Giraud of the French Sûreté. Giraud wastes exactly no time informing Poirot that the Belgian’s help is neither needed nor wanted. Poirot is at first a bit amused by Giraud and his almost pathological hatred of Poirot, but then Giraud begins willfully overlooking clues and facts that Poirot knows instinctively are important.
This is an Agatha Christie novel, so, of course, the major characters all have secrets. Paul Renauld’s secret was a whopper, but did it actually get him killed?
Arthur Hastings, meanwhile, has fallen in love with a young women he met briefly on a train. There’s a muddled side-story in which he aids her escape, even though he is sure she was somehow involved in the Renaulds’ home invasion and Paul’s murder.
My Thoughts On The Murder On The Links
The main story of the home invasion and Paul Renauld’s murder is solid, even if the reveal of the murderer’s true identity failed to completely ring true.
Hasting’s part of the story, by contrast felt like an unnecessary sideshow. Love may, as the saying goes, make fools of us all but Hastings was downright ridiculous in spots.
If you’re new to Poirot, or these kinds of cozy English mysteries in general, I again recommend digging up a copy of the text to refer back to. (Both The Murder On The Links and The Mysterious Affair At Styles are in the public domain in the US so you shouldn’t have much trouble locating one.) Richard Armitage did an amazing job performing Links but the unfamiliar American ear may need a little help now and then with some of the French names.
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Lisa Barger 
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