About this production
The Murder on the Links is Hercule Poirot's second novel, published in 1923, and the first one Christie set outside England. Captain Hastings narrates again, and Christie opens with him alone: Chapter 1 (11m 28s) is a train to the coast and a shared compartment with a young actress who calls herself Cinderella, whose manners shock him and whose name he never quite gets. Chapter 2 (22m 23s) is the case proper. A letter arrives from Paul Renauld, a millionaire living at the Villa Geneviève in Merlinville, begging Poirot for protection against a threat from his past in South America. Poirot and Hastings cross to France, argue on the way about psychology versus footprints, and reach the villa gate to be told by a gendarme that Renauld was found that morning, stabbed in the back and lying in a shallow grave at the edge of a golf course still under construction. Poirot has been hired by a dead man.
That is where the book becomes a duel, and where a single reading voice runs out of room. Within four chapters the French machinery of justice has arrived at the villa: M. Hautet, the examining magistrate; M. Bex, the commissary; Dr. Durand; a sergent de ville. Then, in Chapter 6 (12m 57s), Giraud of the Paris Sûreté walks onto the links, young, fast and contemptuous, kneels over a cigarette end, and tells Poirot his methods are out of date. From there the novel is two detectives investigating the same house in opposite directions, with a Belgian, a Parisian and a roomful of provincial French officials questioning an English-speaking household: Renauld's widow, his son Jack, his secretary Gabriel Stonor, and a staff of French servants led by old Françoise. A solo narration has to carry all of that through one English throat. This cast does not. Hastings is the narrator's voice, which is how a first-person novel should sound, and everyone else is someone else: Poirot's Belgian French, Giraud's dry cutting speed, the magistrate's measured cadence, and a household where the servants sound like the French country house they run and the visitors sound like the English who have moved into it. A listener always knows who is speaking and which side of the Channel they come from, without a single "he said." Our guide to what an AI narrator tells listeners is about exactly that kind of attribution, and how many character voices an audiobook needs uses a book of this shape to answer the question.
The depth of the cast is the thing to listen for. Christie's investigation runs on witnesses who get a page each, and each of them gets a voice here: the Oulard sisters, Denise and Léonie, whose account of who visited the villa that night does not agree with old Françoise's; Auguste the gardener and his footprints; a hotel concierge, a waiter, a page and a receptionist; the chief porter and a second railway official at Merlinville station who fix the movements of a young man who should not have been there; a chauffeur; a taxi driver; a girl at the roadside; and, once the case reaches England in Chapter 22 (18m 47s), a London theatrical agent and a variety act. Chapter 16 (11m 12s) stops the present-day investigation altogether to tell an old Paris trial from the beginning, and the production casts that trial as a room of its own, with its own accused, its own witnesses, a public prosecutor and a jury, so that a story Christie tells in flashback plays as a second drama inside the first.
The set pieces are interviews, and they are paced like them. Chapter 5 (18m 13s) is Mrs. Renauld's account of the two masked men who bound her and took her husband out into the night. Chapter 7 (23m 30s) is the visit to the neighbouring Villa Marguerite and the composed, unhelpful Madame Daubreuil, with her daughter Marthe visibly frightened. Chapter 11 (23m 45s), the longest in the production, is Jack Renauld under questioning, admitting to a quarrel with his father and watching the case turn against him. Chapter 12 (17m 29s) is Poirot, alone with Hastings, taking the official version of the night apart piece by piece. Chapter 14 (13m 13s) is the second body, and the doctor's verdict on it that makes no sense. Chapter 19 (10m 40s) is the confrontation the title promises: Giraud lays out his case and Poirot answers it. Then the book accelerates. Chapters 23, 25 and 26 are the three shortest in the production (9m 06s, 8m 21s, 7m 31s), a run of arrivals, confessions and a letter, and Chapter 28 (20m 49s) is the confrontation at the villa where Poirot explains everything. We will not, and neither will anything in this post. For how a reveal scene like that is directed and mixed, see the mystery and detective production guide.
The book hands the score and the sound design a wide geography: a train compartment and a station platform, the villa's grounds and the unfinished links at night, the shed where the bodies are laid out, the magistrate's room, a hotel on the coast, and a variety theatre in the English provinces. A dramatized production earns its keep in a book like this because so much of the evidence is heard rather than seen, and because Hastings narrates a good part of it without understanding what he is watching. Does your book need a full cast? makes the general case; this production is the specific one.
This is one of the Agatha Christie productions in our free catalogue. Its natural companion is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the other early Poirot novel in the catalogue, where the narrator is a village doctor instead of Hastings and the trick is in the telling. For the Marple side of the shelf, The Murder at the Vicarage is another first-person case narrated by a man who watches the detective work from beside it.
The production runs 7h 26m and contains all 28 chapters of the novel, unabridged and in order, from the joke Christie plays with her own first line to the last page at the villa, with opening and end credits. It is free to listen to.
The 1923 text is in the public domain in the United States. Agatha Christie died in 1976, so the book is still under copyright in the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area. This title is available to listen everywhere except those territories.
By the numbers
- Format: Full-cast dramatized audiobook
- Chapters: 30 (all 28 chapters of the novel, plus opening and end credits)
- Runtime: 7h 26m
- Cast: Hastings narrating in character, Hercule Poirot, and more than two dozen other speaking parts
- Production: AI character voices, original music, and sound effects
- Price: Free to listen
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Start your first chapter free →FAQ
Is this audiobook AI-narrated?
Yes. Every voice in The Murder on the Links is AI-generated and produced by Midsummerr, with an original score and sound design. AI narration is disclosed as such on retail platforms that require it.
How long is the audiobook?
About 7h 26m across 30 chapters: the novel's 28 chapters plus opening and end credits.
Who narrates it?
The novel is written in the first person by Captain Arthur Hastings, so the narrator in this production is Hastings's own voice, and his lines in dialogue are the same voice. Every other character, Poirot included, is a separate cast voice.
Is this the second Poirot novel?
Yes. Poirot first appeared in The Mysterious Affair at Styles in 1920. The Murder on the Links, published in 1923, is his second full-length case and the first one set in France.
Why can't I listen in the UK or the EU?
The 1923 text is in the US public domain, but copyright in the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area runs for seventy years after the author's death, and Agatha Christie died in 1976. The production is available everywhere else.
Where can I listen?
Listen free at midsummerr.com/listen/the-murder-on-the-links.
