The Body in the Ivy

September 4, 2006
Agatha Award–winner Page pays clever homage to Christie's Ten Little Indians
in the 16th outing of her Faith Fairchild series, which finds the amateur sleuth trapped on a remote New England island with a group of imperiled weekend guests. Faith is invited to the island by reclusive bestselling author, Barbara Bailey Bishop, presumably to cater the gathering, but Faith soon suspects that she and the other guests, the hostess's former classmates from Seven Sisters–style Pelham College, have all been invited under false pretenses. Flashbacks to the class of '70s school days reveal that Barbara's twin sister, Helene "Prin" Prince, fell from a campus tower the night before graduation—an apparent suicide. After a northeaster cuts off all access to the mainland, one of the guests is found dead. As the death toll mounts, Faith seeks answers and wonders if she will be the next victim. Readers of the series will relish this addition; Christie fans will enjoy an engaging tribute.