The Clocks by Agatha Christie, a review

The Clocks is the 37th book in the Poirot series, but you don’t need to read them in order. Thankfully because I don’t have all the prior 36 books! I’ve been grabbing Christie’s works from charity shops as and when I spot them and this was the last one I owned that I hadn’t read yet. As always I sped through the book and I really enjoyed it!

I read this book for the fuck ageism prompt for the Fuckathon hosted by the amazing Noria at Noria reads. Poirot is over 60 in the first book of the series, so I think I’m pretty safe in assuming he’s an older main character and because I always speed through these books it was a great choice for a readathon!

These later Poirot books don’t involve Poirot straight away, they start out following the other characters within the crime and the story. I really enjoy this story style, as we get to learn more about all of these individuals and I personally became more invested in the story and in the character arcs.

For this story we follow a young man who is drawn into an investigation of a murder carried out in a blind woman’s house. Not only has this murder been committed but clocks that were not there previously have been left around the room. But the owner of the house has no way of knowing they’re there. She can’t see them.

As always with Christie’s Poirot tales there are other undercurrents running along in the background and I really enjoyed how these accumulated into one main story and how the threads tangled together.

Unsurprisingly this was another wonderful work by Agatha Christie, I gave it 4/5 stars and my only negative is that I don’t have any more of her books on hand to read! I’m looking forward to post-lockdown when I can peruse charity shop shelves and look for secondhand books again!

My favourite Poirot in a while!

 

Book #26 in the Poirot series, The Hollow by Agatha Christie, was one of my picks for the Thrillerathon at the end of February. I was expecting to like it, but I wasn’t expecting anything more as I’ve not loved a lot of the Poirot books I’ve read lately. However, I loved it!

It took a little while to get into the story, with us following the various characters involved in the murder for almost 200 pages before Poirot gets involved. While at first I found this annoying I came to enjoy learning about them in their own environment and was still enjoying myself.

These extra pages for the characters definitely allowed not only for a little bit of character development, but also to allow me to get to know them better and care more about the outcomes at the end of the book. It was definitely a great decision by Christie and I’m glad that the book with the prettiest cover was also the one that I enjoyed the most!

Definitely a Poirot I recommend picking up, as you don’t need to read them in order, and one that I really did enjoy. Speeding through in just one day as always.

Poirot’s nursery rhymes

 

Book 2 in my Buzzwordathon stack was yet another Poirot book, I was really happy that the next book that I owned from Christie had a number in the title! This mystery is from 16 years in the past and Poirot is attempting to see if a woman who was convicted of murdering her husband is actually innocent.

There are as always many twists and turns within this novel which keep you on your toes as the information is slowly dripped through to you. Despite really enjoying these books I never seem to rate them 5 stars, and I think I have finally figured out why. I think it’s because Christie never shows us all of the information until the reveal and so the reader never gets the chance to figure out the plot twist themselves. Despite this, however, I still really enjoy the books and intend to read them all.

I gave this book 3 stars and enjoyed the viewpoint of a long dead case and Poirot’s deduction of the events from fallible memories. Definitely a fun and quick read!

Alphabetised Death

A serial killer is working his way through the alphabet, killing off not only those who’s initials fit his theme, but those with this feature who also live in a town with the same first letter. A very specific event, and to add to this predictability, letters are also sent from the murderer to Poirot before each event! What on earth is occuring?

Agatha Christie does it again, of course! This book, I knew from the title and the cover, was going to be one of my favourites. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just did! From the start Christie lets you further in to behind the scenes, similarly as to how the killer lets Poirot in more than usual. However, of course, things are not quite as simple as they seem and multiple twists and turns occur throughout with so many intertwining sections that you’ll need to focus to keep track! But don’t worry, the story is as gripping as always so you’ll have no issue with being completely immersed.

Another greatly enjoyable Christie book, although you guys knew that before even clicking on the review soooooo…. 😀

Poirot and Christie strike again with a peril and a young woman

Yes yes, another Poirot! These are just such easy reads, and while I’m in the end stages of my MSc that’s really what I need if I’m going to read at all (spoiler alert these reviews are normally quite behind my actual reading schedule and I haven’t read anything in weeks. Blimmin’ thesis taking up all my time!!!)

This one really got me riled up at the end, even after reading so many books from Christie in a row she still manages to astound me and take twists that are more than surprising! Of course I won’t spoil the twist but Poirot is helping a young girl who seems to be the target of various failed assassinations for an unknown reason. This specific Poirot novel goes through twists and turns as Christie analyses her view of the young people of her time and that makes it such an interesting read as always. Agatha Christie has such a good understanding of people and how they operate, as shown so clearly in her writing, but she also seems to be fully aware of biases which she may be victim to. This adds another layer of nuance to Poirot and Hastings’ portrayals, done in two very different ways, and I feel like this book is a beautiful example of that.

As always I recommend, I have quite a number of reviews on Agatha Christie’s work at this point so I definitely recommend going through my back-catalogue to find the right one for you!

The Mystery of the Blue Train

The Big Four

Poirot Investigates

The Monogram Murders

The Thirteen Problems

Death in the Clouds

The Mystery of Three Quarters

The Mystery of the Blue Train

Another Poirot! Yes, I always read these bad boys quickly once I get my hands on them. They just fly by!

In this story, Poirot is travelling by train from England to France when a murder occurs onboard, so of course the ever humble Poirot declares himself the only man fit to solve the case and begins to track down clues!

This case had so many twists and turns, and I actually ended up shouting at the book at one point because I had about 3 people that I thought were the murderer! One of those three guesses turned out to be pretty accurate, but the fact that I couldn’t pin the damn thing down speaks to Christie’s genius.

Have you read this book? Let me know in the comments below! I want to know if you guessed the culprit!

Worldwide Crime Syndicate + Poirot = A Damn Good Book

A worldwide crime syndicate which wants Poirot out of its way, as he keeps foiling their plans. Such a classic plot point and I loved it!

This was such a fun read, with so many intense moments and interesting twists and turns. I always feel like my reviews of Christie are too short, but there isn’t all that much to say. Most people know Poirot, they know Christie and they know these classic mysteries. I don’t need to try and sell them as they sell themselves!

So instead, I guess I’ll ask you guys. Do you read any Agatha Christie books? Do you enjoy these sorts of mystery stories? Let me know in the comments!

The First Poirot Short Story Collection!

Book three in the Poirot series, and the first collection of short stories. These tales don’t have any linking between them other than Poirot being the great detective to solve them all!

I love reading Agatha Christie, I speed through the books so fast and struggle to put them down. I really enjoy short story collections as well, and read through those super fast, so this mixture of the two was bound to be a success for me.

The Short Stories:

1. The Adventure of The Western Star
2. The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor
3. The Adventure of The Cheap Flat
4. The Mystery of Hunter’s Lodge
5. The Million Dollar Bond Robbery
6. The Adventure of The Egyptian Tomb
7. The Jewel Robbery at The Grand Metropolitan
8. The Kidnapped Prime Minister
9. The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim
10. The Adventure of The Italian Nobleman
11. The Case of The Missing Will

I enjoyed all 11 of these and absolutely sped through this book, if you like a traditional mystery then this is an obvious pick up. Although to be fair I don’t need to recommend Christie. I hopefully will be able to read all of her books and complete my collection one day, as I really love her works.

New Poirot popping up

If you read my last post, you’ll know that I apparently needed a lot of Agatha Christie-esque stories in my life right now. But this one is not only Poirot instead of Marple, but it’s also not actually written by Christie! This book has actually been published in the past few years, with an author called Sophie Hannah writing in Christie’s style. Of course this sort of writing comes with risks, but I think Hannah did really well and captured the writing style as much as possible.

I don’t want to say much about the plot itself, as obviously this book is a mystery and I don’t want to spoil it. But I will say that this concept is really cool and something that I enjoyed with it darting around to different locations and having everything all wrapping up together at the end.

I actually read the whole book in one sitting, which doesn’t happen very often anymore as it was engrossing and I just needed to know the ending! This is the first book in a series of new Poirot (and there are at least 3 out so far) so keep an eye out for these guys!!

My first re-read of the year

I’ve been intending to participate with Alex Black’s rereadathon for a few months now (it’s a year long thing) but being away at uni means I don’t have access to all my books so I don’t have anything to re-read! But this re-read ended up being a happy accident. A friend bought me The Thirteen Problems from a charity shop as she knows that I want to read all the Agatha Christie books and I didn’t realise that this was one of the books included in the Miss Marple Short Stories collection. There are other short stories within this collation of works, however, this book is the core part of it. But I did read it again and I really enjoyed it of course!

As I said above, this is a Miss Marple book. In contrast to Poirot, Marple is an old lady who has lived her whole life in a small British town and ergo, when she manages to solve mysteries everyone is shocked. It’s a really fun series and the short story format means that you fly through and get lots of information in one small package.

If you’ve never read Miss Marple before, this short story collection is a great place to start because they all link together into one larger book. They are told from the perspective of people at a “party” taking turns to tell the others about a mystery they’ve encountered and then getting the others to guess who did it. Meaning lots of individual mysteries whilst having them all connected.

I’m glad this was my first book of the re-readathon (I’m counting it and no-one can stop me! Okay maybe Alex can but I don’t think she will haha) and I look forward to reading more Marple in the future!