lesserjoke 's review for:

Double Sin and Other Stories by Agatha Christie

3.0

---

An odd little collection, published in 1961 (and then only in the US) but including stories from as far back as 1925. Three of the eight entries had even been previously released in other Agatha Christie volumes -- "The Last Seance" in 1933's The Hound of Death; "The Theft of the Royal Ruby" and "Greenshaw's Folly" in 1960's The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding -- which results in a rather repetitive read for anyone making their way through the author's body of work. The assortment is also somewhat eclectic, containing four mysteries solved by Hercule Poirot, two by Miss Jane Marple, and two that turn out to not be mysteries at all, but rather spooky tales of the genuine supernatural with nary a detective in sight. Some of these are fun, but even the better ones tend to lean hard on coincidence, which is not this writer's strongest tool. It's not a bad sampler introduction to her style, though.

[Content warning for gun violence, racism, and gaslighting.]

Like this review?
--Throw me a quick one-time donation here!
https://ko-fi.com/lesserjoke
--Subscribe here to support my writing and weigh in on what I read next!
https://patreon.com/lesserjoke
--Follow along on Goodreads here!
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/6288479-joe-kessler
--Or click here to browse through all my previous reviews!
https://lesserjoke.home.blog