The Unexpected Guest
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Summary
Also living in the house are the master's simple-minded brother, his mother, who has little time left, a servant with ulterior motives, and the housekeeper, Miss Bennett. Everyone seems to accept with perfect readiness the suspect that Starkwedder invents.
Can the killer really escape punishment just like that?
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Mystery lovers who enjoy locked-space deduction and high-intensity verbal sparring
- Readers who want to discover sides of Agatha Christie beyond the Poirot and Marple series
- Those who appreciate stage-play structure and seek an immersive reading experience
- Readers interested in deep portrayals of human motive and psychological gamesmanship
Not a good fit for
- Readers seeking grand settings and complex multi-strand narratives
- Those expecting only appearances by classic detective characters such as Poirot
Reading tips
- While reading, try picturing the scene as a stage, noting characters' entrances and exits and the rhythm of dialogue
- Pay attention to the differences in how each character describes 'the incident'—these are key fragments for solving the puzzle
- After finishing, look back at the opening chapters to appreciate the clues and misdirection the author planted early on
About the publisher
New Star Press focuses on classic works, mystery and detective fiction, science fiction, history, foreign literature and art, and its 602 titles in the library show a balance between popular reading and humanistic depth. Representative books include The Complete Works of Shakespeare: Illustrated Collector's Edition, And Then There Were None, Murder on the Orient Express, The Player of Games, Local Government in Qing China, A Good Man Is Hard to Find and A Collection of Fine Ukiyo-e Prints, spanning classic literature, detective fiction, science fiction, local history and visual art. Its authors and contributors include William Shakespeare, Agatha Christie and Iain M. Banks, as well as translators such as Zhu Shenghao and Su Fuzhong and illustrators such as John Gilbert and George Cruikshank. Known for the detective series Midnight Library and for social-science and humanities titles, the press emphasizes edition design and reading experience; public information is limited, so this profile highlights the publishing features reflected in the library's books.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 出版前言
- 致中国读者
- 出场人物
- 第一章
- 第二章
- 第三章
- 第四章
- 第五章
- 第六章
- 第七章
- 第八章
- 第九章
- 第十章
- 第十一章
- 第十二章
- 第十三章
- 第十四章
- 第十五章
- 第十六章
- 第十七章
- 第十八章
- 第十九章
- 第二十章
- 第二十一章
- 附 言
- 意外来客
FAQ
Is this book a novel or a play?
What is this work's standing in Agatha Christie's oeuvre?
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About the author
Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was a British detective novelist, widely known as the "Queen of Crime." Over her lifetime she wrote more than eighty detective novels, generally classified as foreign literature and suspense or mystery fiction, and is noted for tightly constructed plots, steadily mounting suspense, and unexpected endings. She created two contrasting detectives: the Belgian investigator Poirot, who relies on deduction and his "little grey cells," and the elderly village spinster Miss Marple, who sees through appearances by drawing on everyday human nature and close observation. Her representative works include And Then There Were None, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and Murder on the Orient Express; the first is admired for its closed-circle structure of a nursery rhyme killing on an isolated island, while the second is often praised for its narrative technique. Her books have been translated into many languages and have had a lasting influence on later mystery writing, and they have long attracted a wide readership in the Chinese-speaking world as well.
Zou Wenhui is an author about whom limited public information is currently available, and details of her creative career remain incomplete. Her known work is the novel Unexpected Guest. Judging from its common classification, the book is regarded as a social novel, suggesting that its subject matter may stay close to real life and focus on human relationships, social circumstances, and everyday experience. Based on the existing material, Zou Wenhui's writing profile remains unclear, and it is difficult to assess the scale of her work or her overall style. The title and classification of Unexpected Guest nevertheless suggest that the story may revolve around a sudden incident or an outsider, using it to reveal conflicts and emotional undercurrents in social life. For readers, the author remains a relatively unfamiliar figure who invites further discovery, and the work offers a point of entry into her perspective. Because confirmed information such as dates of birth and death, nationality, and creative experience is lacking, this introduction makes no further inferences and is based only on the available facts and the work's classification, in the hope that more material will later make possible a fuller portrait of the author.
