REFRESHINGLY DESCRIPT

I wrote a blog post recently griping about my desire to read a good mystery and my inability to find one that truly satisfied.

Well, one came my way. And it was everything I wanted: well-written, with an intriguing story and elegant characters. And it happened to be British: Agatha Christie's "Funerals are Fatal."

This passage from it is one of the best scene-setters I've read lately:

Two elderly men sat together in a room whose furnishings were of the most modern kind. There were no curves in the room. Everything was square. Almost the only exception was Hercule Poirot himself who was full of curves. His stomach was pleasantly rounded, his head resembled an egg in shape, and his moustaches curved upwards in a flamboyant flourish.

He was sipping a glass of sirop and looking thoughtfully at Mr. Goby.

Mr. Goby was small and spare and shrunken. He had always been refreshingly nondescript in appearance and he was now so nondescript as practically not to be there at all. he was not looking at Poirot because Mr. Goby never looked at anybody.

Great, huh?

Next up, when the mystery lust overtakes me again: