Reading progress update: I've read 44 out of 380 pages.
Ok, this is probably the one book that I am starting with the most anticipation and the most hesitation I have felt towards any book in a while.
I don't like fan-fiction and I'm particular about historical fiction, even more so when it is about a person or event that I am familiar with.
A Talent for Murder is both. It is a fictionalised biography of Agatha Christie that is also a mystery about what happened during the eleven days she was missing in 1926.
I'm also excited. Andrew Wilson is a skilled biographer of Patricia Highsmith, another favourite of mine. He is also a fan of her thrillers.
So far, I'm excited to say that all that reading Highsmith seems to have rubbed off a little, and that is probably the best scenario I could have wished for. The beginning of the book was a littered with scenes that resembled elements of both The Man in the Brown Suit and Strangers on a Train.
I hope Wilson manages to keep this up.
Incidentally, I'm not impressed by the title, A Talent for Murder. It seems to be a copy of Nicola Upson's An Expert in Murder, which essentially following the same story idea but is a fictionalised murder mystery based on Christie's fellow crime writer Josephine Tey.
Yeah, not keen on the copy-cat idea here, and I'm sure I'll be even less impressed if Wilson follows the same formula.
So, we'll see.