Book Review

A simple book review...
...to help me keep track of the books I've read...
...to give others an idea of how the stories go...


Agatha Christie
~Hercule Poirot ~ 39 stories

1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles

2. The Murder on the Links

3. Poirot Investigates

4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

5. The Big Four

6. The Mystery of the Blue Train

7. Black Coffee

8. Peril at End House

9. Lord Edgware Dies

10. Murder on the Orient Express

11. Three-Act Tragedy

12. Death in the Clouds - 2nd completion 5th March 2007

The first Agatha Christie story that I read. This is the second time I've completed the book. This book is about an intriguing murder in an airplane with an improbable way of murder. Here, Hercule Poirot gains the confidence of the murderer to confirm his deductions. To the reader and all others in the story, it seemed like Poirot had 'cleared' him of murder and had enlisted his help to investigate others. The result is a hugely surprising ending as the murderer seemed to have a rock-solid alibi. Very satisfying read.

Rating: 5 / 5

13. The ABC Murders

14. Murder in Mesopotamia

15. Cards on the Table

16. Murder in the Mews

17. Dumb Witness

18. Death on the Nile

19. Appointment With Death

20. Hercule Poirot's Christmas

21. Sad Cypress

22. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

23. Evil Under the Sun

24. Five Little Pigs

25. The Hollow

26. The Labours of Hercules - Completed 29th Dec 2006

I've actually read half of this book last year, but was not able to complete it before the due date and was not able to locate it at the libraries I visited subsequently, until now. This book consists of 12 short stories, in which Hercule Poirot sets out to emulate the person he was named after, Hercules. The 12 mysteries figuratively mirrors the 12 labours of Hercules.

There are a couple of interesting stories here; some are rather simple and lacking in suspense. My favourite here is 'The Stymphalean Birds'. Hercules' sixth labour was to kill these birds-of-prey which have iron beaks and feast of human flesh. In 'The Labour of Hercules', two Polish women with long curved noses, wearing long flowing cloaks were compared to the Stymphalean birds for their physical resemblance to the birds. The author leads the reader to think that these two are really the 'Stymphalean birds' in this story of a case of blackmail. In the end, it was revealed that the actual vultures are two women working in hand to blackmail a civil servant by leading him to think he was embroiled in a case of manslaughter. The twist was excellent and it is not until the last page of the story that the civil servant is told of the actual culprits in this case. The comparison here is thus metaphorically, and it will take a very alert reader to figure out the actual 'Styphalean birds'.

Overall, I think this is a very good book. The stories are generally suspenseful, and the matching of the crimes to the labours of Hercules was interesting.

Rating: 4 / 5

27. Taken at the Flood

28. Mrs McGinty's Dead

29. After the Funeral

30. Hickory Dickory Dock

31. Dead Man's Folly

32. Cat Among the Pigeons

33. The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

34. The Clocks

35. Third Girl

36. Halloween's Party

37. Elephants Can Remember ~ Completed 2nd Dec 2006

...old sins leave long shadows...

Adriane Oliver is a famous mystery writer. During a literary luncheon, she was approached by Mrs Burton-Cox. Desmond-Cox was going to get married to Mrs Oliver's goddaughter, Celia Ravenscoft, and Mrs Burton-Cox was anxious to find out the truth behind the double death of Celia's parents - whether it was the father who shot the wife before committing suicide, or the other way round.

Saddled with a request from an unlikeable woman, she was unwilling to fulfill the task, yet pigued by curiousity to know the truth behind the tragedy. She enlisted the help of her friend, the famous detective, Hercule Poirot. Together, they seeked out all those who were linked to the incident to give them a clue to what happened. These are the people Mrs Oliver called elephants - people who were able to retain memories of what happened, years after.

As Hercule Poirot delves back into the past, he was able to discover the link between the death of the parents of Celia, and a tragic accident of her mother's twin sister six weeks earlier, and the true reason for Mrs Burton-Cox strong desire to know the truth.

Unlike most of her other books that I've read, Elephant Can Remember does not have a strong twist in the ending. It is not very intriguing as there were enough clues to guess the truths behind the deaths, halfway through the book. Still, she manages to deliver a tiny surprise in the end.

Rating: 3 / 5

38. Poirot's Early Cases

39. Curtain: Poirot's Last Case