Calling all Agatha Christie fans: Somebody with an impish sense of humor and an encyclopedic knowledge of Christie's corpus is bent on creating ten murders more or less (mostly less) in the image of her stories and novels, and tweaking Chief of Detectives Harvey Goldstein, NYPD (A Grand Night for Murder, 1995), with his knowledge. Fortunately, Goldstein is as well-read in the classics as the killer is; so is his distinguished visitor, retired Chief Inspector Colin Whicher; and even Goldstein's skeptical deputy, Sgt. John Bogdanovic, is putting in his hours at Agatha's shrine. The resulting puzzle, which cheats by ending with still another literary borrowing, may be paradise for Christiephiles, but the lamentable lack of real ingenuity (not to mention the unthinkable virtues of realism and emotional engagement) should warn off the less devoted.
