Finished reading A CARIBBEAN MYSTERY by British crime writer Agatha Christie. This novel was first published in 1964 when, excluding Jamaica and Trinidad, the West Indian islands were still colonies.
It is set on a fictional island, St Honoré, where a British couple own and operate the Golden Palm resort. One popular cocktail among guests is called Planters Punch --- a mixture of dark rum, lemon juice, syrup and Angostura bitters.
Guests are tourists and expatriates from Britain, North America and Venezuela. A notable guest is old Miss Jane Marple who, having survived a bout of pneumonia in England, is recuperating on the island. She is the story’s unofficial detective character.
One guest, a retired British Army Major who had served in colonial India and Kenya, is murdered suddenly in his bungalow one night. That tragedy is swiftly followed by the killing of a Golden Palm employee and another guest. Miss Marple takes it upon herself to figure out the identity of the killer. Who? That’s the Caribbean mystery.
