Seven Dials: An Agatha Christie mystery, and a young sleuth cracking it

Dame Agatha Christie has often been called the Queen of Mystery, and she has penned 66 novels and 14 collections of short stories. They have all been led by Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple – two sleuths who have cracked so many, many mysteries. Many have been adapted to the screen, and the latest to arrive at the Netflix gate is Seven Dials, directed by Chris Chibnall.

Gorgeous sets and magnificent outdoors capture 1920s England with its stunning ladies and chivalrous men ready to get down on their knees to propose to their loves. Set in the midst of all this is a dark mystery of seven clock dials – narrated in three episodes, each an hour long. A bit of a drag in parts, the series, nevertheless, perks up at other times.
The work opens with a guy getting gored to death by a bull in Ronda. The year is 1920, and the series continues for several more years before Chibnall ties it up neatly. We watch how poverty and money, misery and mirth, hold hands at a magnificent party. Lady Caterham (Helena Bonham Carter) has class but no cash, and so she has to cheat at a card game.
Young Lady Eileen Bundle Brent (Mia McKenna-Bruce) is at the party: she is mourning the death of her brother, and when his best friend asks her out to dinner, she says yes. She is also excited because he has made it clear that he plans to propose to her, but fate has other plans. The following morning he is found dead in bed! Two deaths, one after another, and they do not give her time to get over her losses.

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The friend had apparently overdosed himself with sleeping pills. And there are seven alarm clocks on his mantlepiece, but his prankster friends left eight. And why did he take the pills? He was a sound sleeper. The mystery deepens, and Lady Eileen decides to turn into Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery of the dead man and the strange case of the missing clock, which is found the following morning on the lawn.

Seven Dials is well written and evenly paced in a way that it appears credible. Chibnall does not throw logic out of the window, and avoids over-dramatisation — following Lady Eileen closely as she ponders and pauses and pursues the killer. When the curtain opens to reveal the murderer, we are shocked. We are, indeed, so.
The writer is a movie critic and author. Views are personal.