3.72 AVERAGE


¡Qué loco todo! Montones de muertos y de sospechosos.
Creo que Agatha Christie ya estaba a estas alturas muy harta de Poirot porque no aparece hasta el tercio final del libro para hacer voilà y aquí tenéis al asesino.
Ambientado en un internado de niñas, se nota que es un tema que conoce: distintos tipos de alumnas y de profesoras, lo rancio de algunos de esos colegios...
Ya lo había leído y a mitad del libro me acordé de varios detalles importantes.
Quiero también agradecer a Editorial Molino el sutil trabajo de darnos montones de pistas en las portadas #NO

⭐3⭐
mysterious slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Novel ini diawali dengan kisah permata bernilai jutaan Pounds yang berhasil diselamatkan dari konflik di sebuah negara di Timur Tengah. Saat ini, Permata itu disembunyikan di antara barang-barang seorang siswi di Meadowbank, sebuah sekolah putri yang terkenal.

Meadowbank sendiri baru saja memulai sebuah semester baru dengan beberapa murid baru yang menyolok (termasuk seorang putri kerajaan), guru-guru baru yang kurang disukai, dan seorang tukang kebun dan seorang sekretaris yang menarik perhatian. Kepala Sekolah sendiri,Bu Bulstrode, sedang bimbang memikirkan rencana pensiunnya dan bagaimana ia akan memilih penggantinya.
Kedamaian yang terasa tidak bertahan lama, pada suatu malam terjadi pembunuhan di Paviliun Olahraga. Korbannya adalah Bu Springger, guru olahraga yang baru. Di tengah upaya Bu Bulstrode menyelamatkan nama baik sekolah, terjadi dua pembunuhan lagi.

Apakah kejadian ini berkaitan dengan permata yang bernilai mahal itu? Atau ini hanyalah suatu kecelakaan yang tidak menyenangkan?

Hercule Poirot terlibat dalam kasus ini dan.. happy ending.... :)

Agatha Christie is reliably herself for this mystery, and I did enjoy speculating for a long time how Poirot would show up. This was a standard red-herrings plot, with rather a lot of gears turning over, right up until the final scenes, so the pleasure in reading is a bit self-congratulatory: "Oh, I saw that coming." I enjoyed most getting to know Miss Bulstrode and Julia, and I wish there were an entire novel just about Julia's mother's adventures. I least enjoyed the casual racial stereotypes: why did people fall back into such lazy, offensive tropes? I have the white privilege of not being personally offended, but it grates on my nerves to encounter it.
mysterious medium-paced

3.5 stars

While the espionage elements are a bit over the top, the cleverly placed red herrings make the novel far more complex than it first appears. There's one mystery any Christie fan sniff out quickly, but she's way ahead of you - you're *meant* to know. Clever.

3.25 stars

My goodness, I can’t remember when I last read an Agatha Christie - must be over 40 years anyway. It was interesting to read and compare her style with Margery Allingham’s, and I read one of her stories this week too. Cat Among the Pigeons starts out with an unseen observer during a revolution in a fictional middle eastern state. The mystery is focused on what they see and try to retrieve - the wealth of the current ruler in precious stones hidden in a tennis racket handle belonging to a British schoolgirl. The child and her possessions are swiftly evacuated, the eastern potentate is assassinated and soon after English school teachers start to be murdered. About two thirds of the way through the book, Hercule Poirot is sought out by one of the schoolgirl’s classmates (smart girl) to find the killer.

I should warn you the language in the book would not be used today, and is hard to see in print. The societal attitudes are also not what we would accept now either. That said Ms Christie’s work could be updated and dramatised. Her characters and plots are easy for readers to access and enjoy.

Avid fans of Poirot will be disappointed his appearance is much delayed, partly because a fourth schoolteacher dies and partly because he elevates the book.