Evil Under the Sun (Hercule Poirot #24)
- Agatha Christie
Mine would be an unpopular opinion. I love poirot stories, but the novels are hit or miss for me.
This one had more than usual of Christie's tropes, some of which I can't reconcile myself to. For one, the premise is very similar to one of the short stories, about a love triangle or quadrangle. We have the usual occurrence of coincidences, critical facts are shielded from the reader, but perhaps the worst aspect was the unraveling of mystery being based on intuition (oh, because he is just the type to commit this sort of crime ... awful).
Read and Reviewed in January 2021
The Big Four (Hercule Poirot, #5)
- Agatha Christie
Was this was really a Poirot novel, really?! I agree with many other readers that this was totally out of character for Poirot, and the frenzied action was most reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes in The Final Problem. Apart from this, the biggest disappointment for me was that most of the revelations of identities of the villains and plot twists came as no surprise.
Read and Reviewed in Oct 2020
Cat Among the Pigeons (Hercule Poirot, #34)
- Agatha Christie
This was disappointing. The characters were completely one-dimensional, and everyone seem to have formed the same impression of everyone else. Poirot didn't make an appearance until 2/3rd of the book, officials were inept as usual (I mean, a special branch officer cannot find anything of interest, let alone solving the case?), and had too many coincidences with some unexplained events
* SPOILER *
It was quite evident where the gems were hidden - as soon as Jennifer complained about the balance of her racquet.
Adam Goodman's presence was completely unnecessary - if you think of it, he didn't achieve any purpose. I think it would have been a better story if, rather than forcing Poirot towards the last one-third or quarter of the book, Adam had solved the case with help from Kinsey and Julia.
And there were just too many coincidences, as there usually are there in Christie's novels. While they are alright for a small village setting, it doesn't make sense in this case. Why does EVERYONE go to Ramat, of all the places? Specifically, the purpose of Ann's visit is never explained. And it is very strange that Jennifer should have seen Rich there - it should definitely have been bigger than a village, and Rich was trying to keep low, avoiding meeting people, and when Jennifer is said to have been really bad at observation.
Read and Reviewed in Jan 2020
Open and Shut (Andy Carpenter Series, #1)
- David Rosenfelt
This is the second Andy Carpenter book I read (after Twelve Dogs of Christmas). It was entertaining as well, though I felt the author went a little overboard with the humor dose in here (perhaps he achieved more balance in later books?). However, this one was much more predictable. I had identified the main villain before the first half.
Read and Reviewed in Dec 2019
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