Reviews with content warning for Murder - The ABC Murders

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Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie

54 reviews

fallandfox's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging informative mysterious reflective relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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zakcebulski's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Another day, another Christie novel!
I was told via reviews and the sort that this book was better, as told my some, than The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and And Then There Were None. And, while I do not agree with that in the slightest, I do think that this book is another hit by Christie. This book was so fun to read because it was a slight variation on Christie's usual style.

I love the set-up of this book, in my limited knowledge of Christie's work, most of the stories which I have read are all focused on a single death, (with the obvious exception being ATTWN). As such, I greatly appreciated the set up of this story being Poirot going mentally toe to toe with a serial killer. This is a set up that is endlessly fascinating to me, because, as a new reader of Christie's works, I feel that Poirot is kind of the "cheat card'- an "ace up the sleeve", type of character where he seemingly knows the answer to the crime before the crime has been committed it seems! This book was different. Instead of Poirot knowing everything, he is playing catchup- he is, it seems, outmatched which does a great job of creating a sense of fear- the all knowing Poirot is outdone? Say it ain't so!

This book takes place from the POV of Hastings and I quite liked this- I don't know whether I have read another book from his point of view before and I quite liked it! I thought that their back and forth was especially snappy and quite funny. Poirot can be a bit of a dick at points but you get the feeling that he is not doing so out of spite or malice, rather, that he is just so highly intelligent that he might not even realize what he is doing!

But, this time around, Poirot is largely playing catchup. As well, he is not certain of who is behind all of these things, until the end. I thought that this was so interesting a set up as it showed that even the masterful mind of Poirot (with his little grey cells) can be stumped at points.
I also greatly appreciated how Christie gave a few instances wherein Alexander Bonaparte Cust, the scapegoat of the story, was given a few chapters to be developed. I did think it was odd that Christie revealed this character so early which immediately made me not cast suspicions on him. I did think she was going to pursue the angle of Cust's POV being shown so that we knew what he was thinking and doing as the killer- which was a great part of the story to read because he acts like someone who may be the killer, and is in all of the places where the killer was... except one... As the story progressed and it seemed more and more likely that it was him, I eventually bought in. I thought it was exquisitely written how each murder was made to frame Cust to the point where even he started to believe that he was indeed the A.B.C Killer. I feel like this could have been extremely sloppy if it was not handled so meticulously by Christie- wherein she says "okay this guy is going to be the scapegoat be he didn't really do it!"

I think that this was so interesting because it is almost like Christie is saying "I am going to pull a fast one on you, and you won't even know it is happening". And you know what? She did exactly that.

The reveal of who the true culprit was, was interesting to me because he was painted as such an inconsequential figure- just a sibling of a murder victim. I loved this. The "Gotcha!" moment was so fucking good. Especially when Clarke just up and says "alright man, you got meee" and then tries to kill himself only to have already been thwarted by Poirot. This dude was so fucking certain he had a pickpocket steal Clarke's gun and unload it, so that he couldn't kill himself after Poirot caught him. This scene shows exactly what I meant by Poirot being the ace up the sleeve- where he knows exactly what he is doing and is toying with this guy at this point.

While I don't think that I liked this book as much a Murder on the Orient Express, and Then There Were None, or The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, I thought that this book was a great read. I was enthralled in the story because it was so much of an experimentation on what Christie already does so well. My only major gripe about this read was that I really didn't care much for any of the ancillary characters who were related to the murder victims.
As always, I am excited to read more by the Queen!

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aaround132's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

the whole thing got an unexpected twist last minute

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iyashtereva's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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ma_mmds's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious reflective relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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akira_outofthegravity's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Surprisingly good! A twist ending I didn’t see coming which was a lovely surprise.

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ailsaod's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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mrkdk's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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daniellearlotta's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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bubblxgumwitch's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Agatha Christie es la reina del misterio, and that's on period. La forma que tiene de engañarte y jugar contigo para luego desvelar la verdad y que todo encaje en retrospectiva es simplemente magistral. Parece un libro que se presta mucho a la relectura, quizá lo haga algún día.

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