Agatha Christie

Book Review: Murder on the Links

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Murder on the Links
Hercule Poirot #2
 by Agatha Christie
read by Hugh Fraser

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Classic mystery

When Poirot is summoned to France by a man that is already dead when he arrives, he attempts to detangle a twisty mystery. This story threw me a couple of times. At least once, I thought the mystery was solved, only for it to take another turn. I don’t know if that’s because I was listening to the audiobook and maybe missed something or if they were intentional twists. There were so many potential answers to the mystery that seemed to be real and then were later shown to be false, though, that I’m certain I will look back on this story and either not be able to remember who the actual culprit was or remember it wrong. I’m also not a fan of the insta-love trope that happens with Hastings in this book. It’s a bit of a stretch to believe that this woman made such a big impression on him in the small interaction they had, though it weirdly seems to be a common trope in fiction written in this general time period.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Hugh Fraser and thought he did a great job. I don’t know that I’ll read this entire series in the end, but I certainly plan to keep going.

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Book Review: The Mysterious Affair at Styles

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Hercule Poirot #1
 by Agatha Christie
read by Hugh Fraser

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Classic mystery

This is the first Agatha Christie book I’ve ever read, and now I’m wondering what took me so long, especially since I’ve been a fan of mystery books all my life. I think when I was younger, I figured older books would just be boring, but as an adult, I definitely appreciate the simplicity of books written or set in historical time periods. Though I think the narrator, Hastings, needed more development as a character, Poirot is an interesting detective-type character, and I look forward to getting to know him more. I had some theories about the mystery, though I don’t know that the clues to the true answer are really given to the reader. Poirot plays things pretty close to the vest, allowing Hastings, who acted as his sidekick, to go down quite a few wrong paths. Though some say it’s not the best idea to start with this book if you’ve never read any in this series before, because Christie was still figuring out who Poirot is or for other reasons that might keep someone from liking the series enough to want to keep going, to me, that just means it’ll get better from here. And though Poirot may have over-explained after the mystery was solved, I enjoyed the story overall. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Hugh Fraser and thought he did a great job. I’m looking forward to continuing on in this series!

Find out more about The Mysterious Affair at Styles

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If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!