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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
mysterious
medium-paced
Part of my exercise in rereading all of Agatha Christie in order. Have read this before, but not in years--probably decades. Remembered very little, but did pick up on the primary clue that Christie prods the readers with, and, having done so, I got most of the way there--but not all the way! She's clever, as always. Interesting to note that Miss Marple doesn't show up until page 142 (out of 200), and only appears on about 20 total pages. Quite different from the way Christie focuses Poirot novels centrally on Poirot.
De moment es el llibre de Miss Marple qué més m'ha agradat, m'ha tingut força enredada fins al final. També l'he gaudit en anglès i he pogut deleitarme amb tots els jocs de paraules. La meva escena preferida ha estat la de Londres. També té reflexions molt interessant com de on ve la por. Un llibre molt ben lligat, el recomano.
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
mysterious
medium-paced
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The characters were likable but the storyline itself and reveal was not interesting.
“There’s too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will. I might concede you the Devil. God doesn’t really need to punish us, Miss Barton. We’re so very busy punishing ourselves.”
3.25 stars. A really good mystery, but I expect nothing less from Christie. This one loses points for the characters and the romance; the former I didn't particularly like, and the latter I hated. Every time Christie adds a significant romantic subplot to any of her mysteries, it gets worse. In my opinion, anyway. I'm sure there's someone out there who enjoys the way she writes romance, but it certainly isn't me. I was also disappointed by the relative lack of Miss Marple in this Miss Marple book. She does make an appearance eventually, but not soon enough for me.
We're following an injured pilot who has come to a small village in the countryside with his sister to convalesce. It turns out that the village has been having trouble with an anonymous letter writer, who's been sending malicious letters to almost everyone in town. Including Jerry and Joanna, as soon as they get to town. Brother and sister socialise as they normally would, end up learning more about the inhabitants and the letters they've gotten, and soon, tragedy strikes. Jerry becomes interested in solving the mystery. Like I've said in several reviews for Christie books, her mysteries are almost always rock solid to me. She's so good at laying down clues, but also misdirecting the reader, but also not making it obvious that you're being misdirected. At least to me! I've read several mysteries and thrillers where you can just tell when the author is trying to lead you in the wrong direction, and it's often so obvious. It seldom is, when Christie does it. At the end of the book, I could clearly see all the clues that I'd missed or overlooked that would have pointed me in the correct direction. I love that. It's exactly what makes for a satisfying mystery.
Unfortunately, I didn't particularly like this main character. I don't NEED to have a likeable main character, but Jerry is a chode in a way that wants to be charming, which made him all the more insufferable to me. There are two romances in this, and I hated them both. The main one with Jerry most of all. Look, I know it's just a product of the time, I know it doesn't mean anything, but the way he kept calling Megan 'child' just grossed me out. He would constantly infantilise her, which made it all the more skeevy when he started having romantic designs, and then insisted that she was an adult. I just didn't like it. And the dog joke? Oh wow. Sure, it was meant as a joke, but I loathed it. Nor did I like the other romance. Something about the way Christie writes the dynamic between men and women, especially when it involves a strong, headstrong woman, is just fully, capital letters, Not For Me. There are some Christie books where she makes fun of the ways that men are supposedly all Like This and women are supposedly all Like That; that silly, gender essentialist mindset. But some parts of this book seemed to lean into that mentality instead, especially when it came to the solution. IDK. Very possible that I'm reading too much into it, but it annoyed me, nevertheless.
Listened to the audiobook as read by Joan Hinkson, and I really liked it. Something about those older, classic voices just really work for me. I was also reading along with the ebook, which helped me to realise that they'd done what I really dislike: changed a bunch of Christie's phrasing that might have been interpreted as bigoted in the updated version. The audiobook is an older version, so it hadn't been updated. And I believe that's how it should be. Removing the instances where she compares people to 'black slaves', or a bit where she points out that a woman is Jewish, doesn't help the book. It certainly doesn't help me. The only people it helps are the ones who like to pretend that Christie was never racist or anti-Semitic. (Not that this book is especially racist or anti-Semitic, but some of her language in other books certainly is.) Just a little personal gripe; I will complain about it every time I notice it.
One of the better mysteries! But alas, bogged down with a lot of stuff I didn't like.
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No