Collection of early Christie short stories, most of which she wrote before settling on murder mysteries as a genre. These all have some kind of supernatural angle, either real or faked to fool someone.

It's a good collection and some of the stories have truly shocking twists, but Christie had a habit in those days of throwing the twist in your lap and abruptly ending the story with no reflection or wind down. It's gutsy, but often unsatisfying. It would have been cool to see what she might have done in this genre had she come back to it as a more experienced writer. (Or maybe she did and I just don't know about it yet.)
dark mysterious medium-paced

Not great. I'll be happy to be reading AC novels again instead of the short story compilations.
medium-paced

An enjoyable and quick read. The best stories are "The Witness for the Prosecution," "Wireless," and "The Lamp." The title story is fairly pointless, and some of the stories have obvious twists. But I had a good time reading this anyway.
adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
adventurous challenging funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Just read 'The Witness for the Prosecution'.

Agatha Christie, whilst she certainly has a way of telling stories but the characters personalities were repeated and mundane. The stories themselves just felt a wee bit spooky, like a guy dressed in a table cloth as a ghost for Halloween.

So just read 'The Witness for the Prosecution'

Mrs. Christie surprised me with this collection of short stories-12 in all as they aren't her usual murder mysteries. Perhaps she was testing the waters to see if her readers would be enticed to read and ponder ghosts or even the occult. I thought for the most part they were well written and enjoyable but not on the same level as her other works. For me listening to this book in the audio version as performed by Christopher Lee was an added treat.
minnehahasybyl's profile picture

minnehahasybyl's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 148%

Short stories are supernatural but uninteresting