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ryanward5500 's review for:
Hallowe'en Party
by Agatha Christie
3.5/5 (rounded up to 4)
I enjoyed reading this book and liked the central mystery. I did correctly predict the murderer, but my theory was not entirely correct and I was wildly unsure of myself, so it was still fun to read the final explanation. A few reviews say it was obvious within the first 30-40 pages, but you certainly don’t have all the information you need at that point so I’m not sure where they are coming from. If they did correctly predict the murderer, they certainly did not know the correct motive or what was going to happen later in the book.
My major issue with this book is that every character Poirot interviews says almost the exact same thing about more children being born evil than ever before, and how they need psychological evaluations. It’s wildly unnecessary and quite annoying after the second or third time, and yet it continues to come up throughout the book. One or two characters making that point would have been enough, and the fact that the same passage seems to be copied and pasted into every chapter is what knocked this book from 4 stars to 3.5 stars for me.
That being said, it’s a solid, classic Poirot novel with an intriguing mystery at its core. If you are a fan of Agatha Christie, definitely don’t skip this one.
Note: The movie adaptation, renamed “A Haunting in Venice,” is about to come out. This book does not include a haunting, and is not set in Venice. From what I understand, the movie adaptation is only loosely based on the book, so I will keep that in mind and try to enjoy the movie as an independent Poirot mystery.
I enjoyed reading this book and liked the central mystery. I did correctly predict the murderer, but my theory was not entirely correct and I was wildly unsure of myself, so it was still fun to read the final explanation. A few reviews say it was obvious within the first 30-40 pages, but you certainly don’t have all the information you need at that point so I’m not sure where they are coming from. If they did correctly predict the murderer, they certainly did not know the correct motive or what was going to happen later in the book.
My major issue with this book is that every character Poirot interviews says almost the exact same thing about more children being born evil than ever before, and how they need psychological evaluations. It’s wildly unnecessary and quite annoying after the second or third time, and yet it continues to come up throughout the book. One or two characters making that point would have been enough, and the fact that the same passage seems to be copied and pasted into every chapter is what knocked this book from 4 stars to 3.5 stars for me.
That being said, it’s a solid, classic Poirot novel with an intriguing mystery at its core. If you are a fan of Agatha Christie, definitely don’t skip this one.
Note: The movie adaptation, renamed “A Haunting in Venice,” is about to come out. This book does not include a haunting, and is not set in Venice. From what I understand, the movie adaptation is only loosely based on the book, so I will keep that in mind and try to enjoy the movie as an independent Poirot mystery.