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Spider's Web is the Agatha Christie property that exists in two forms: a 1954 stage play (originally written for the actress Margaret Lockwood) and a Charles Osborne novelization that uses the same plot beats but expands them into prose. The country-house comedy of manners that the play does extremely well comes through less effectively in book form, but the puzzle is clean and the characters are likable.
Clarissa Hailsham-Brown is the heroine, a wife and former diplomatic spouse who is good at making up stories to entertain her friends. When she finds a body in the drawing room she decides, as a sort of joke that will then become a problem, to make up a story to cover for it.
The Christie material is the puzzle and the setup. The novelization is competent rather than essential. Three stars. Recommended to Christie completists. The play itself, if you can see it, is the stronger version.
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