Confession time to kick off this review. I had never heard of this book, before starting on my quest to read all of Agatha Christie’s books. When I set out to read all Ms Christie’s books, some titles were very familiar. Many I had read. Others I had heard of, …
The mood is set early on in this classic whodunnit. As the guests at a charming hotel on a little tidal island discuss a fellow guest, there is general agreement that the glamorous woman is more than a vamp, more than just a source of envious dislike from the other …
Every time I finish an Agatha Christie novel and fail to guess the outcome (i.e. every single time!) I am astonished anew at just how clever and inventive a writer she was. “Five Little Pigs” is a case in point. Obfuscation, dredging up 16 year old recollections, and still there …
It pains me to admit this, but I was a-l-m-o-s-t a bit bored by this 1937 whodunnit, the first time I’ve felt remotely like that during my ongoing quest to read all of Ms Christie’s books. There seemed to be a lack of energy, and the usual crisp creative handling …
Quick word of explanation/quasi-apology before I start this review. A few months ago, when I embarked on my personal quest of reading all the Agatha Christie novels in chronological order, I foolishly didn’t factor in one thing…my recent month-long climbing expedition in the Indian Himalayas. With no connectivity but a …
We begin this 1928 murder mystery in Paris, with an un-named man meeting a secretive jeweller. The scene quickly shifts to London and two rich Americans who live there, Rufus Van Aldin and his daughter and only child Ruth, the Hon. Mrs. Derek Kettering, an heiress unhappily married to her …
Published in 1927, so still early days in Agatha Christie’s literary career, yet already “The Big Four” is quite different from what we have come to think of as Ms Christie’s “typical” style of writing. After reading the book – and enjoying it, but not enormously so, if I’m being …
Whew. WHAT a smashing read this book is, even 98 years after it was written. In 2013 ”The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” was voted the best crime novel ever by the British Crime Writer’s Assocaition and who am I to disagree? From the very first page, this is an enthralling …
I’m in a bit of a dilemma, dear reader. I have decided, as you may remember, to read all the Agatha Christie books in chronological order, but my quest for order has already come a cropper. You see, the prolific Ms Christie not only published a collection of 11 short …
