The Seven Dials Mystery is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by William Collins & Sons on 24 January 1929[1] and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year.

"[4] Another was quite disappointed in the change in style from some of her earlier novels, saying that she had "deserted the methodical procedure of inquiry into a single and circumscribed crime for the romance of universal conspiracy and international rogues.

"[5] Another felt that the story started out well, but then earned sharp criticism for the author as "she has carefully avoided leaving any clues pointing to the real criminal.

The guest list includes Gerry Wade, Jimmy Thesiger, Ronny Devereux, Bill Eversleigh, and Rupert "Pongo" Bateman.

Alfred takes Bundle into a secret room, where she hides in a cupboard and witnesses a meeting of six people wearing hoods with clock faces.

They talk of the always-missing "Number Seven", and about an upcoming party at Wyvern Abbey, where a scientist called Eberhard will offer a secret formula for sale to the British Air Minister.

Battle tells Bundle that the association has succeeded with their main target, an international criminal whose stock in trade is the theft of secret formulae: Jimmy Thesiger was arrested that afternoon with his accomplice, Loraine Wade.

At Wyvern Abbey, Thesiger stole the formula, passed it to Loraine, then shot himself in his right arm and disposed of his left-hand glove using his teeth.

Mrs Christie lacks the haphazard and credulous romanticism which makes the larger canvas of more extensive crime successful.

The mystery of Seven Dials and of the secret society which met in that sinister district requires precisely such a broad treatment, but Mrs Christie gives to it that minute study which she employed so skilfully in her earlier books."

The uncredited reviewer set up the plot regarding Gerald Wade being found dead and then said, "Thus far the story is excellent; indeed it continues to promise well until the time comes when the mystery is to be solved.

Then it is seen that the author has been so keen on preventing the reader from guessing the solution that she has rather overstepped the bounds of what should be permitted to a writer of detective stories.

[9] She compared this period favourably with the time at which she wrote these comments (1950s to 1960s) when she was plagued with income tax problems which lasted for some twenty years and ate up most of what people presumed was a large fortune.

[11] The blurb of the first edition (which is carried on both the back of the dustjacket and opposite the title page) reads: When Gerald Wade died, apparently from an overdose of sleeping draught, seven clocks appeared on the mantelpiece.

The same team of Pat Sandys, Tony Wharmby and Jack Williams worked on the production which again starred John Gielgud and James Warwick.