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    At Bertram’s Hotel
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    At Bertram’s Hotel
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    At Bertram’s Hotel
    Audiobook6 hours

    At Bertram’s Hotel

    Written by Agatha Christie

    Narrated by Stephanie Cole

    4/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    A grand old London hotel A series of alarming coincidences Danger lurking down every corridor

    Impeccable service. Luxurious rooms. Eccentric guests. There are worse places for Canon Pennyfather to find himself stranded than Bertram’s Hotel.

    But when he gets his dates in a muddle and attempts to travel to Lucerne a day too late, he unwittingly sets off a violent chain of events.

    And Miss Marple is convinced there is more going on than meets the eye.

    Never underestimate Miss Marple

    ‘Agatha Christie inspired me, aged eleven, to write my own murder mystery set in a country village. I can’t remember much of the plot (think the vicar did it) but Christie has been inspiring me ever since.’
    Elly Griffiths

    ‘Brilliant.’
    Guardian

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateApr 2, 2007
    ISBN9780007250134
    Unavailable
    At Bertram’s Hotel
    Author

    Agatha Christie

    Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 70 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

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    Reviews for At Bertram’s Hotel

    4/5

    140 ratings44 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I first read this one way back in junior high school (in the *cough* 1970s), and I remember being quite puzzled about several aspects of it. I didn't really understand how hotels worked, for one thing, or what it meant to seem Edwardian, or what trains carried that made them so tempting to robbers (the Irish Mail Express? Why would thieves want to steal other people's mail?). And I didn't really appreciate Miss Marple, at least not the way I do now as I near the end of my chronological reading of the series. I'll be sorry to see the old pussy go. I've enjoyed getting to know her again and better. I can't help wishing that Christie had written more Marples and fewer Poirots, but such is life.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      What makes 'At Bertram's Hotel' so special is it's rendering of a reality long passed in order to justify a crime. Conformity with all perceived ideas of Britishness are the reason for people getting the wrong perspective about the present. Superb presentation of one of the most delightful Agatha Christi novels.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Agatha at her nostalgic, imaginative, creative best. One of her Strong Women stories we love so.
    • 4/5
      Not one of her best books, but still an Agatha Christie.
    • 3/5
      Apparently, not one of Christie's better works. At Bertram's Hotel exceeds in establishing an atmosphere but leaves Miss Marple somewhat sidelined as the Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard leas the investigation. A delightful conceit but not a terribly satisfying crime or conclusion.
    • 3/5
      Don't read this expecting the movie scenerio
    • 2/5
      Not my favorite Miss Marple - probably because she is hardly in the book. It seems like Agatha Christie had a great idea for a murder mystery and added Miss Marple as an afterthought.
    • 4/5
      You will read very little about Miss Marple, for her appearances are very few. Good book with an ending that has a silly moment and a very, very interesting grand finale!
    • 4/5

      Bertram's Hotel is the paragon of good taste & times gone by. At Bertram's Hotel all is "perfect" and the clientele is of the most upper class. At Bertram's Hotel one can satisfy their memories and their need for nostalgia. At Bertram's Hotel many people are recognized as friends from days past, but may not actually be. At Bertram's Hotel all is not what it seems.........

      Miss Marple is sent on a vacation by her niece.... a fortnight at Bertram's Hotel. Sitting with Lady Selina Hazey, a friend from days gone by, it is innocently pointed out to Miss Marple that many people whom appear to be acquaintances from days past are not whom they appear to be and marked as as aging mind.

      Other guests of the hotel include: Beth Sedwick (a famous adventuress), Elvira Blake (Bess's daughter, whom Bess gave up 2 weeks after her birth), Colonel Luscombe (Elvira's legal guardian), and Canon Pennyfather (who suffers from frequent memory lapses). Then there are: Hotel Commissionaire Michael "Mickey" Gorman (Bess's first husband/Elvira's "unknown" father), Ladislaus Malinowski (a famous race car driver, Bess's former lover & Elvira's secret fiancee), Henree (the concierge who makes everyone's stay perfect to the last detail), and Chief Inspector "Father" Davy (who happens to believe everything is not quite as it seems at Bertram's Hotel).

      Everything is going smoothly until the disappearance of Canon Pennyfather who never showed up to the conference in Lucerne that he was scheduled to attend and the murder of Mickey Gorman......

      This was a very interesting plot and it was well written.....
    • 4/5
      A quiet select hotel with an excellent Mayfair location, Bertram’s Hotel has been in business for many years. It’s like a small slice of Edwardian London and it’s appeal is growing among American tourists as well as the older clientele that it has been serving for generations. Offering the perfect English tea, glowing coal fires, quiet studies, and impeccable staff, Bertram’s seems too good to be true.Miss Jane Marple is enjoying her stay at Bertram‘s, as usual she sits quietly in a corner, knitting and sipping her tea and observing all the comings and goings. Yes, things aren’t all what they seem at this exclusive hotel. From a missing clergyman, to a young impressionable heiress, and a flamboyant woman who lives her life on the gossip pages, Miss Marple has a lot to ponder upon.Another excellent Agatha Christie mystery story where the mystery isn’t nearly as important as the atmosphere or the characters. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Bertram's Hotel.
    • 3/5
      Nice standard Aggie - read it to remind myself of the actual story after watching and entertaining piece of fluff on the TV which had many of the same characters, a hotel called Bertrams and an almost completely different plot! But all the Miss Marple recent TV dramas muck up the plots - perhaps the dears in the script department think we can't cope with the originals - how patronising!
    • 4/5
      I have seen the TV versions of the novel several times and in fact did wonder whether it was worth my while reading the book, it being next in my list for the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge.I hadn't realised how much the story had been modified for television, with characters left out, and others inserted. There are a number of plot changes.The main import of the novel is that nothing at Bertram's Hotel in 1955 is as its seems: all is a facade, from the appearance of the hotel, to the people who visit it, to the people who run it. Miss Marple realises that it is a mistake to try to step back to pre-war days. In fact the Bertram's Hotel she remembers is much older than that, a memory from her childhood.The story also illustrates Agatha Christie's conviction of the prevalence of organised crime rings that underpinned facades of normality. The police inspector who carries out the investigation into Bertram's shady dealings and the disappearance of Canon Pennyfather is an avuncular old chap who has seen it all, but he is not the same as the bouncing lad of the television production. Nor is there the romantic element that TV gave us for public consumption.I don't think Miss Marple comes out of thebook particularly well - Christie portrays her as an old busybody who eavesdrops on people's conversations when she can. On the other hand she does recognise evil when she sees it and she demonstrates an understanding of the foibles of the elderly. For example she knows that Canon Pennyfather had mistaken the day he should be flying to Lucerne, and when he returns to Bertram's Hotel, she instantly knows he is not the person she saw descending the stairs at 3 am.So an interesting read. Perhaps not Christie's best.
    • 3/5
      This is very different from anything I've read by Christie. It's out there in terms of scope of the plot and the investigation is a lot of police procedural with a tiny bit of detection thrown in. However, it's still a book I couldn't put down as usual with the author. You can feel the end is near though as many characters comment on how much society has changed, even down to the outing of the ritual of afternoon tea. I didn't love At Bertram's Hotel but it did manage to entertain me more than most books.
    • 3/5
      I've always had a special place in my heart for Agatha Christie, despite not actually reading many of her books. In fact, I don't think I've read one since elementary school. There's just something about her stories that are classic. I listened to this one, and it was more a radio play than a straight reading, which just made it even more sweet and quaint somehow. There's a very Scooby-Doo like explanation of the events at the end, but it works.
    • 4/5
      It provided for an enjoyable afternoon!
    • 3/5
      A luxurious London hotel serves as the backdrop for a tale of high crime.This book begins very well and has atmosphere aplenty. Christie has suceeded in capturing the feel of this place and the moods of those who inhabit it. Unfortunately, the plotting doesn't quite live up to the rest of it. To my mind, Christie's best work deals with smaller, personal crimes. Stories such as this one, which deals with a series of heists, usually fall flat. At Bertram's Hotel is no exception. All the ingredients are there, but they just don't come together as well as one might hope.This isn't a bad novel by any means, but it's far from essential Christie.
    • 5/5
      Starts off slow and fuddy but gets interesting, if confused.
    • 1/5
      I'm a fan of Christie's work, but I really can't recommend this. It's almost incorrect to call this a Marple mystery, since she features in it so little, and is hardly involved in the solving of the mystery at all, a solution in which I found myself completely uninterested. Dull.
    • 3/5
      This one was quite nice. I loved the description of the hotel -- it's really really vivid: I could imagine it perfectly. It was a bit slow to kick off, in terms of action, though, and Miss Marple wasn't terribly central. I wasn't sure what the real point was going to be; it didn't seem as neatly tied together as I would like. I did enjoy it, though, and the last few pages were really rather good.
    • 3/5
      London, England, ca 1965.Bertram's hotel er et meget fint og gammelt hotel i London. Om der nogensinde har været en Bertram fortaber sig i det uvisse, men det er klogt drevet og bestyreren Humphries giver specielt lave priser til gamle engelske damer som fx Miss Jane Marple, fordi de giver stedet atmosfære.Det er dog et mysterie at det kan løbe rundt og Scotland Yards Davy og Stephen synes at der er svage tegn på en forbindelse mellem hotellet og en række røverier.En højkirkelig og højdistræt person Canon Pennyfather forvilder sig ind i sammensværgelsen, men slipper med livet i behold. Miss Marple hjælper politiet på vej, men har ikke nogen fremtrædende rolle i opklaringen. Hjernen bag operationen er Bess Sedgwick, men hun ender med at flygte og køre sig ihjel efter at have tilstået mordet på sin første ægtemand Michael Gorman. Det var imidlertid ikke hende, men datteren Elvira Blake, der har gjort det og Chief Inspector Davy har ikke tænkt sig at hun skal slippe afsted med det. De to finansielle bagmænd er dog sikkert urørlige.Udmærket krimi
    • 3/5
      September 2017 reread: While Miss Marple is present through most of the book, she doesn't really contribute to the solution in the way I expected. This reread has made me reconsider my rating, downgrading the book from 4 to 3 stars. In particular, I didn't care for the ending.
    • 3/5
      My first Agatha Christie novel. It was a nice, light murder mystery but a tad bland in spots. Miss Marple is on a two week vacation at the distinguished Bertram's hotel. Bertram's is a traditional old English hotel where guests can expect whichever style vacation they please: English folks can have traditional tea with buttery muffins and American travelers can have cereal with orange juice if they wish. Police are called in when an absent minded clergy member goes missing from the hotel and luckily they are still on scene when a hotel employee is murdered. Miss Marple conveniently blends into the background and hears many things that others wish she hadn't heard.Nice light book that didn't take much brain power to read through.
    • 5/5
      Great story and interesting, engaging characters. Very well performed by Stephanie Come.
    • 4/5
      All is not as it seems…Agatha Christie mysteries always provide an intriguing cast of characters that are so lively, you can picture them sitting across the table from you. The sense of place is another wonderful feature of these novels, and nowhere is that more pronounced and remarkable than in this book – At Bertram’s Hotel.I found this to be a different kind of mystery with some interesting characteristics. The book certainly held my interest, but surprisingly not because of the plot, which I find okay. For me, this was a slower, more disjointed, and meandering plot and mystery. There are a number of places where I thought the story could have been tightened up and better focused, but it is a charming one still. What really struck me and has stayed with me is the sense of place. Bertram’s Hotel is an enigma – a place out of time. As the world has sped up and sped by, it is an oasis of old-fashioned traditions and values. It is remarkably unchanged and has become a popular spot for those people, now elderly, who knew it from years gone by, as well as tourists seeking a taste of authentic and original London. However, as we all know, time touches on everything. Bertram’s Hotel may seem unchanged on the surface, but as you peel away the layers, and peer behind the veil as it were, all is not as it once was. To remain a place suspended out of time, other things must change, and change they have. There is the core of the mystery of this book.Only through the keen observation of Miss Marple, her notice of the minutest of details, do we get to uncover what is really going At Bertam’s Hotel. There are very sinister goings-on, but there is also a larger social and societal shift underway, one that left me with a distinct melancholy for what is sometimes lost to time, and a sadness that we cannot stop it from happening. A thought-provoking and worthy read.Rai Aren, co-author of Secret of the Sands
    • 4/5
      Bertram’s Hotel is located in London’s fashionable West End; Mayfair to be precise. A stay at Bertram’s is like a visit to the past; Late Victorian England to be precise. Miss Marple arrives for a two-week visit and indulges (to a surprising degree) in nostalgic trips around London to the places of her girlhood (many of which are no longer extant). Bertram’s is pricey, clearly beyond Marple’s meager pocketbook, but her niece picks up the tab. When her niece initially suggests a stay at Bournemouth (an old resort town on the south coast), Marple characteristically rejects that sleepy destination and states her preference for a trip to the capital instead.Anyway, something isn’t quite right about Bertram’s. It’s too good to be true in its defiance of the march of time and progress. Of course, while Marple is thinking that something is fishy, the reader gets to indulge in Christie’s descriptions of a bygone time and place. And Christie populates her tale with charming stock characters, such as the forgetful cleric and the out-of-touch uncle. Marple is right about Bertram’s, of course, and in the end we find out what is really behind the place. Christie acknowledges that time marches on, while simultaneously juxtaposing the old values with the new much to the detriment of the new. The yearning for the past is no surprise and certainly no impediment to enjoying the story. The biggest problem I have with this story is the insufficient amounts of Marple. She resides in the periphery of the story until about the last fifth of the book when she helps the old chief inspector (known as ‘Father’) solve the crime. Jane and Father don’t like all the changes in society, but are flinty-eyed realists. Not bad, but not first rate Christie.
    • 4/5
      Four stars only compared to some of Christie's other mysteries, but compared to almost anyone else in the genre except maybe Ngaio Marsh or Dorothy Sayers, it would be beyond five stars. Miss Marple takes a holiday in London and stays in a charmingly old fashioned hotel. And yet, while Miss Marple in elderly, she is quite aware of the passage of time, and Bertram Hotel's perfect recreation of a bygone era unnerves her a little and puts her on her guard. Of course, this turns out to be a good thing, when murder occurs and the police turn to Miss Marple's acute observations to help them unravel the mystery.
    • 3/5
      This is a lively romp of a mystery involving guests at a luxurious hotel. Only every one has his or her little secrets. Of course, these are not too opaque for Miss Marple to see through. It is not a remarkable book; but if you enjoy Agatha Cristie, then by all means read this one too.
    • 3/5
      Miss Jane Marple takes a two week holiday at Bertram’s Hotel, of which she has fond childhood memories. So! At Bertram's Hotel, Agatha ChristieIt’s 1965 and Bertram’s hasn’t changed since King Edward V’s time. And that, dear reader, is part of the mystery. Although the hotel seems charming at first, it takes on a sinister face. There’s a great cast of vintage Christie characters, but Jane Marple plays only a peripheral part in the whole investigation.Read this if: you’d like to see Christie acknowledge the modern world encroaching on her country-house-cozy formula that was successful and more or less unchanged for decades. 3 stars
    • 4/5
      At Bertram's Hotel is an interesting story but lacks in the mystery department. I can see why it isn't overly popular compared to others. It's actually more of a tale about the hotel than an actual murder mystery.
    • 4/5
      Classic Ms. Marple -- what's not to love?