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katie_bowday's review against another edition
2.0
Why did every one of these stories end in a spontaneous marriage proposal?
ragingcardboard's review against another edition
4.0
This was a super fun little collection of stories. There's a good variety of stories included, some of them were very clever, and a couple of them were really funny. Overall, I had a great time reading this, it was a perfect, quick, easy read. Great for Christie lovers. High recommend.
lewfode's review against another edition
3.0
I have this one tagged "mystery" in Goodreads, but a lot of these stories were pretty thin mysteries. It's easy to see that these are some of Christie's early works. The plots are thin, the solutions improbable, and frankly, the romances were pretty cheesy. I did like the end of the book where her stories trended more towards the supernatural, and the final story about the dog. Overall, I wouldn't consider this one of her best works but it was entertaining beach reading.
fscolli93's review
mysterious
relaxing
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
spygrl1's review
3.0
Some enjoyable "beautiful young (and broke) people having adventures" stories, as well as a few of the supernatural tales that aren't my cup of tea (the rich young lord whose step-mother transfers his spirit to a cat is ... memorable). Concludes with Next to a Dog, which is light on plot, but beautifully captures a woman's devotion to her dog.
aprilleigh's review
5.0
Not the usual Christie fare as several of them are more paranormal than the stuff she's best known for, but some of the stories are exceptionally good.
A few of them seemed to end very abruptly, in particular "Jane in Search of a Job." It felt like half a story. I didn't care much for "The Call of Wings" either, because it was a little too far removed from what I enjoy most about Agatha Christie.
However, many of the others are real gems. "The Listerdale Mystery" was a little sappy, but very satisfying. "The Girl in the Train" was a lot of fun and made for a good adventure. "A Fruitful Sunday" was delicious. "The Rajah's Emerald" was one of my favorites and I cheered the protagonist on the last page. "Swan Song" was, like some of her mysteries, easy to see coming once the pieces had been assembled, but no less appealing for it. "The Strange Case of Sir Andrew Carmichael" was slightly frustrating — it was fairly obvious where it was going pretty early on and I wanted to yell at the narrator for being blind to it for so long, but it ended in a most satisfactory way.
One of Christie's better collections, which is really saying quite a lot. If you prefer to stick to her mysteries you may not care much for this collection, but they're still excellent.
A few of them seemed to end very abruptly, in particular "Jane in Search of a Job." It felt like half a story. I didn't care much for "The Call of Wings" either, because it was a little too far removed from what I enjoy most about Agatha Christie.
However, many of the others are real gems. "The Listerdale Mystery" was a little sappy, but very satisfying. "The Girl in the Train" was a lot of fun and made for a good adventure. "A Fruitful Sunday" was delicious. "The Rajah's Emerald" was one of my favorites and I cheered the protagonist on the last page. "Swan Song" was, like some of her mysteries, easy to see coming once the pieces had been assembled, but no less appealing for it. "The Strange Case of Sir Andrew Carmichael" was slightly frustrating — it was fairly obvious where it was going pretty early on and I wanted to yell at the narrator for being blind to it for so long, but it ended in a most satisfactory way.
One of Christie's better collections, which is really saying quite a lot. If you prefer to stick to her mysteries you may not care much for this collection, but they're still excellent.
amdbarger's review
3.0
Just an OK collection. The first half of the stories all seemed to end up Happily Ever After and the second half of the stories were a little darker and spookier.
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