Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

Book Review: Sad Cypress

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Sad Cypress
Hercule Poirot #21
by Agatha Christie
read by David Suchet

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Classic mystery

This story has a different structure than the previous ones I’ve read, starting out in the courtroom with a woman on trial for murder. Then we see flashbacks to the events leading up to the death and Poirot’s investigation after. The courtroom scenes are shown from the perspective of the accused woman, and she gives nothing away in the narration. I made some assumptions right off the bat, but as the story unfolded, things became more muddled for me. I definitely didn’t guess the ending, but that never bothers me. Overall, I found the story engaging and the psychology involved well-written. Generally speaking, this was one of the better in the series for me. I still prefer Hugh Fraser’s narration to David Suchet’s, which I know might be weird, since David Suchet is well-known for portraying Poirot. His voice for Poirot in this audiobook left much to be desired, in my opinion, but it wasn’t bad overall.

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Book Review: Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

/ Kristi / Leave a comment

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
Hercule Poirot #20
by Agatha Christie
read by Hugh Fraser

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Classic mystery

I think I’m starting to get burnt out on this series. I spend a lot of time while listening to these books guessing at reasons why each different character could be the murderer. But not using logic and reason within the story, rather I try to figure out which is the least likely or the one that will surprise the me the most, and then try to figure out how and why they might have done it. I’m usually wrong. I’m not sure if enough information is given to the reader to allow us to truly use logic and reason to pinpoint the killer, but even if it were, I’ve never been great at guessing mysteries correctly anyway. That said, I did have a correct guess about the killer in this book, but that’s partly because I’ve been waiting for this particular outcome for several books now.

I did like the overall mystery in the end, and Poirot is in fine form. I miss Hastings though. And I’m noticing more and more than he goes through several “possible” reveals before he gets to the final one, and by the time he gets to the final one, I’ve got mental whiplash. I think he’s telling us the truth, but that’s not it…then maybe it’s this, but no…it’s not. Because of the aforementioned waiting for this type of killer to come up, I know I’ll never forget the outcome of this book, but with others like that, I can’t really remember who ended up being the bad guy. In the end, I liked the book, but maybe I would’ve liked it more if I weren’t listening to them all so closely together. Still, I think this story is worth reading—or listening to the narration by Hugh Fraser, which is as great as ever.

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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!