I can only imagine what it must have been like to read this fresh, without any expectations and sans almost a century of copycats. This was the first Christie I ever read at the age of twelve and I'm just a little angry that I wasn't able to read it for the first time as an adult. Anyway, though I knew who the killer was, it was a pleasure to sit back and watch how Agatha built up the story for us. The only thing that doesn't really make sense is (view spoiler)[why Sheppard tells anyone about the blackmail letter--it only implicates him, as the logical person to have known about Mr. Ferrars' cause of death (hide spoiler)]. Anyway, this is a classic!