Reviews - The Seven Dials Mystery

944 reviews for:

The Seven Dials Mystery

Agatha Christie

3.67 AVERAGE

janedoesmissinghead13's review against another edition

3.75

mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: N/A

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

dst's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I had my suspicions and two out of three were wrong. But ultimately one of my later suspicions was correct. Sadly I’d have realised it much to late to actually help anyone.

ottiedot's review against another edition

2.0

Agatha Christie does not know how to write thrillers. Period.

This book embodied all the most of the problems I had with her The Big Four (other than the explicit racism) except in greater measure.

It starts out kind of okay and I will give that the humour in this book was subtle and delightful. (See what I did there?)

But all through the secret society parts I can truthfully say that I physically cringed as I thought over and over, Really, Christie? Why? Just why? . The members are in an old warehouse and wear masks with pictures of clocks on them and refer to themselves as One o clock, Two o clock and so forth? Uhg and the dialogue between them. This is the kind of crap I expect to read in a Secret Seven novel not an Agatha Christie novel (who is in quite a high standard in my books from reading And Then There Were None, Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The ABC Murders, Murder on the Orient Express etc).

The characters were quite lovable though and I especially liked Lady Coote who had a cunning, calculative behaviour towards her husband rather than being a generic two dimensional character.

I'll grant this book one more thing. My reaction at the end of that chapter when it said Superintendent Battle was the one behind the mask in that secret society. My mouth just about hung open. But what this book did was effing cheap, because it did that only for shock value and I got kind of pissed at that.

And when in the end they said that Jimmy Theseiger was the one who did it I was in a nirvana like state of indifference and I was just glad to be done with it.

In short I'm sorry if this is the first Christie you read because this is not miles within her best works. I'm off to read better books. Ciao!
PS. Kudos to her for Bundle's character though and her romance with Bill that does not assassinate her basic character. (What am I saying I have read so much YA lit lately that not messing up with romance seems to require great commendment.)