Interestingly, she chose to make a golf enthusiast the victim in The Murder on the Links, her second Hercule Poirot novel.
In her story, Captain Hastings travels back to France at Hercule Poirot's invitation. There they discover Mr. Renauld, the rich man who wrote to Poirot, pleading for the great detective's assistance, has been found stabbed on the golf course. This isn't just any golf course: this is one Mr. Renauld helped design and fund, and it lies right next to his property. Agatha Christie never explores this aspect of the story, but you can imagine the irony of the situation, as well as how his wife and son must have viewed it. This man, who to a certain extent lived for golf, has now also died for his cherished sport. Poirot and Hastings spend the entire day assisting the French police, then take a car to the Hotel Des Bains, which has been recommended to them by the examining magistrate M. Hautet.
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| In the TV adaptation, Captain Hastings plans a vacation for himself and Poirot. Instead of the Hotel Des Bains, he books them into the Hotel Du Golf. The film location is the five-star Hotel Normandy, located in the French city of Deauville |
Was Agatha Christie merely envious that her husband got to play a sport he loved while she locked herself away at home to write? Even if she loved writing? Did she suspect that his time away from her, playing a sport he loved with other men and women, might lead him to form new and powerful relationships, which would sap his devotion to her? We may not know what drove her to make a golf enthusiast like her husband the victim of her next novel. What we do know is that, a few years after she wrote The Murder on the Links, Archibald Christie asked her for a divorce.
But then, life imitates art, often in unexpected ways.
Dragon Dave
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