Cool Down with Agatha Christie – Ordeal by Innocence discussion

Aug 222011

This is part of the Cool Down With Agatha Christie summer extravaganza. Three participants in today’s discussion will win an Agatha Christie mystery prize pack.

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According to the courts, Jacko Argyle bludgeoned his mother to death with a poker. The sentence was life imprisonment. But when Dr. Arthur Calgary arrives with the proof that confirms Jacko’s innocence, it is too late—Jacko died behind bars following a bout of pneumonia. Worse still, the doctor’s revelations reopen old wounds in the family, increasing the likelihood that the real murderer will strike again.

What were your general impressions of the book?
Like Endless Night, Ordeal by Innocence has a bit of a different structure than many of Christie’s books. In this case, the central murder occurred well before the book started. What did you think of this plot structure?
Did you feel the same level of engagement and suspense in Ordeal by Innocence as in other Christie books, even though the murder occurred before the book started?
Were you able to predict the identity of the murderer?
Other thoughts?

Thanks for participating in Cool Down with Agatha Christie this summer!

This post was written as part of my participation in Cool Down with Agatha Christie, sponsored by HarperCollins.

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – And Then There Were None discussion

Jul 252011

This is part of the Cool Down With Agatha Christie summer extravaganza. Three participants in today’s discussion will win a copy of next month’s readalong book, Ordeal by Innocence, as well as an Agatha Christie mystery prize pack. Next month we will be reading Ordeal by Innocence, if you would like to join us, please sign up on the Google form.

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The beginning of the newly released edition of And Then There Were None begins with an Author’s Note which is really a section on And Then There Were None from Agatha Christie’s autobiography that is simply fascinating:

I had written this book because it was so difficult to do that the idea had fascinated me. Ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous or the murderer being obvious. I wrote the book after a tremendous amount of planning, and I was pleased with what I had made of it. It was clear, straightforward, baffling, and yet had a perfectly reasonable explanation; in fact it had to have an epilogue in order to explain it. It was well received and reviewed, but the person who was really pleased with it was myself, for I knew better than any critic how difficult it had been.

What were your general impressions of the book?
And Then You Were None is probably one of Christie’s most famous works, and almost certainly her best-known standalone. Was this your first experience with this book? If so, was it on your radar before this? If not, how did it hold up on the reread?
As Christie referenced in her autobiography, And Then There Were None is perhaps the ultimate in locked door mysteries. Did you have any idea who the culprit was or how he or she manufactured the crime? Who did you initially suspect, and did that change as the book progressed?
Even though I had read this before and remembered the basic outline – and before long even the murderer – And Then There Were None terrified me in a way that none of Christie’s other books have. Did you find it particularly frightening? What about it lends itself to palpable fear (if, indeed, you believe it does)?
What was your opinion of the use of the device of the epilogue to solve the murder, when nobody else was able to do so?

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – Ordeal By Innocence giveaway

Jul 252011

AC ReadingGroup TileAds StandAlones picture If you are interested in discussing Ordeal by Innocence with us on Monday, August 25th2nd and still need a copy, sign up on the Google form below and five winners will be selected at random.

If you’re interested to see how the discussion work, please check out last month’s discussion of Endless Night.

ordealbyinnocence picture

US and Canada mailing addresses only, please. Enter by midnight Central time on Wednesday, June 27th.

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The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie – Book Thoughts

Jul 042011

The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie
Published by Harper Paperbacks, an imprint of HarperCollins

I’m so excited about this Cool Down with Agatha Christie event this summer that Harper Collins is sponsoring and I am co-hosting that I am going to be reading a LOT of Agatha Christie this summer. I just don’t have it in me to review each and every one, so I’m just going to give my brief impressions.

The plot, in brief:

A priest is dead, bludgeoned after attending the death bed of a widow. There are no clues, other than a mysterious list of names found on the man’s body. Detective-Inspector Lejeune and Dr Corrigan the medical examiner have not much to go on, until Corrigan happens to meet up with an old classmate, Mark Easterbrook. Mark makes nothing much of it at first, other than knowing a recently deceased person with a surname that matches the list, but said person died of natural causes. Still, he begins to hear oblique references to The Pale Horse as a place where unwanted persons can be done away with and, subsequently, meets a gaggle of alleged witches at an inn by the same name, one of whom swears it is possible to induce a fatal illness in a person with psychic powers.

My thoughts:

Interestingly enough, this is the second Agatha Christie in a row I’ve read that uses a first person narrative. Surprising, because I didn’t really think she used them. I did not have the same disconcerted feeling while reading it this time, whether because I had just experienced something similar, or because Mark Easterbook is a far more stable and polished narrator than Michael Rogers. Also interesting is that the question of the supernatural was brought up again, also something I believed was relatively rare in Christie’s work. One thing does hold true to form, though, and that is the fact that I never can tell whodunnit.

Although it was a bit of a change from Christie’s best known works, I really enjoyed The Pale Horse, as seamlessly put together as any of them.

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tumblr ln4gn3MV6Z1qlfzspo1 250 picture PBS will be airing a version of The Pale Horse in which they have inserted Miss Marple on Sunday, July 10th at 9pm (check your local listings). Join in the Twitter viewing party with the hashtag #agathachristie or watch it online later and come discuss it with us at Linus’s Blanket on Monday, July 11th.

For the full schedule of Agatha Christie discussions, see the list at Book Club Girl. As a reminder, I will be hosting a discussion of one of Agatha Christie’s best known books, And Then There Were None (previously titled Ten Little Indians) on Monday, July 25th, so grab a copy and join in!

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – Endless Night discussion

Jun 272011

This is part of the Cool Down With Agatha Christie summer extravaganza. Three participants in today’s discussion will win a copy of next month’s readalong book, And Then There Were None, as well as an Agatha Christie mystery prize pack. Next month we will be reading And Then There Were None, if you would like to join us, please sign up on the Google form.

Today we are discussing one of Agatha Christie’s later standalone works, Endless Night.

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When penniless Michael Rogers discovers the beautiful house at Gypsy’s Acre and then meets the heiress Ellie, it seems that all his dreams have come true at once. But he ignores an old woman’s warning of an ancient curse, and evil begins to stir in paradise. As Michael soon learns: Gypsy’s Acre is the place where fatal “accidents” happen.

Agatha Christie tends to use third person narration, the only exceptions I am aware of being The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and, of course, Endless Night. What did you think of her use of first person here?
The way that this story advances is also very different from the way most of Agatha’s stories advance, with no dead body for quite some time. What were your thoughts while reading, did you find it suspenseful?
With whom did you most identify while reading, Michael or Ellie?
When the dead body finally did show up, what did you think was the ultimate cause of death? Did you suspect anyone?
Endless Night ends with a big twist, did you see it coming? What did you think of the way Christie chose to end the story?

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – And Then There Were None giveaway

Jun 272011

AC ReadingGroup TileAds StandAlones picture If you are interested in discussing And Then There Were None with us on Monday, July 25th and still need a copy, sign up on the Google form below and five winners will be selected at random.

If you’re interested to see how the discussion work, please check out today’s discussion of Endless Night.

andthentherewerenone picture

US and Canada mailing addresses only, please. Enter by midnight Central time on Thursday, June 30th.

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Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie – Book Thoughts

Jun 212011

Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie
Published by Harper Paperbacks, an imprint of HarperCollins

The plot, in brief:

When an elderly parson dies suddenly in the middle of a dinner party, nearly everyone assumes he died of natural causes, including Hercule Poirot. When most of the guests are reunited and another man dies in the same way, suddenly the ruling of natural causes in the first death is suspect. But who is killing these dinner guests, and why?

My thoughts:

Let me tell you, I was SO SURE I knew who the murderer was this time. When I read Towards Zero, I suspected everyone and never had any idea of the motive, but in Three Act Tragedy I was entirely set on one suspect for well over half of the book, complete with motive and everything. Of course, I was dead wrong on the murderer, but I felt good about not being too far off on motive, though.

This was my first Hercule Poirot book, and I was quite surprised at how little the famous detective figured in the story. He was a character from the very beginning, but had very little to do with the story until the book was well over half way through. He did solve the mystery, but other characters did most of the investigation. Three Act Tragedy did take place after his official retirement, so I’m interested to read some of the earlier books and see if that continues to be the case, or if he is more prominent in some of his other stories.

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tumblr ln4gn3MV6Z1qlfzspo1 250 picture We will be discussing Three Act Tragedy on Thursday, June 23rd at BookingMama.net as part of Cool Down with Agatha Christie. If you’ve already read it, come and join us! And if you haven’t, grab it today and come join us, Christie’s books are fast reads.

If you don’t have time to get to Three Act Tragedy, we’ll be discussing Christie’s Endless Night on my blog on Monday, June 27th, at which time I’ll also be giving away five copies of And Then There Were None for our July discussion.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – Standalones Readalong

May 312011

You may have heard that HarperCollins is reissuing all of Agatha Christie’s books exclusively. To celebrate, they have enlisted my help, along with Book Club Girl and three other bloggers to host an Agatha Christie Summer Readalong Extravaganza called “Cool Down With Agatha Christie,” which will be taking place this June, July, and August.

Here’s what HarperCollins has to say about the reissues:

HarperCollins is proud to now be Agatha Christie’s global publisher and will be reissuing all of her books in beautiful trade paperback editions. These wonderful authentic editions are exactly as Christie wrote them using the original UK texts. Read

all of the Christie mysteries including the Hercule Poirot Mysteries, the Miss Marple Mysteries, and the Tommy and Tuppence Mysteries (Winter 2012). And don’t miss a single one of Christie’s stand-alone novels and short stories.

I will specifically be hosting a readalong of some of the standalone books during the fourth Friday of every month. If you want to start getting ready now, here is my schedule:

Endless Night – June 27
And Then There Were None (previously known as Ten Little Indians)- July 25
Ordeal by Innocence – August 22

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I will have five copies of each to give away to people who plan to participate, as well as one mystery prize to be given away to a participant in each discussion.

Feel free to grab the general button and/or the one specifically for my standalones readalong:

AC ReadingGroup TileAd General picture AC ReadingGroup TileAds StandAlones picture

As I said, though, I am one of five bloggers co-hosting this event. Check out what everyone else is doing as well:

Jen from Book Club Girl: Agatha Christie short stories – schedule
Julie from Booking Mama: Poirot – schedule
Melissa from The Sunday Book Review: Miss Marple – schedule
Nicole from Linus’s Blanket: movies – schedule

If you plan to participate in any of the events, we encourage to leave a link on the Mr. Linky below (please note, all of our blogs have the same Mr. Linky, so you only need to leave your information once), either to an announcement post or to your blog in general:

If you are planning to participate in my first readalong for Endless Night, please leave your name in the Google form below. I will choose five people who have signed up at random to receive copies of the book from HarperCollins. Please sign up by 11:59 pm Central on Friday, June 3. Winners will be notified over the weekend. Having a blog is NOT a requirement.

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Towards Zero by Agatha Christie – Book Review

May 312011

Towards Zero by Agatha Christie
Published by Harper Paperbacks, an imprint of HarperCollins

If you are interested in Agatha Christie’s standalone novels like Towards Zero, check out the readalong I will be hosting this summer.

People tell you that Agatha Christie is a master, but you have to read her yourself to fully understand. Take, for instance, this setup early in Towards Zero:

I like a good detective story,” he said. “But you know, they begin in the wrong place! They begin with the murder. But the murder is in the end. The story begins long before that – years before sometimes – with all the causes and events that bring certain people to a certain place at a certain time on a certain day…. All converging towards a given spot… And then, when the time comes – over the top! Zero Hour. Yes, all of them converging towards zero.” -p. 4

There is no murder until over 100 pages into the story. This could easily be the story of a simple family drama. The disapproving elderly surrogate mother; the man and his new wife visiting at the same time as his ex-wife; the man who has been in love with the ex-wife since childhood, and the one who has been in love with the current wife since childhood. Instead, I spent nearly 120 pages uncomfortable, wondering who would be murdered, and by whom.

Even before knowing the victim, my brain was working overtime to find the culprit. Oh, the red herrings! Every few pages I would feel that a character had tipped his or her hand, provided just the clue I needed to know who was going to have done it. Except, as soon as I started to feel smug, that character would make it plain that while she was a great suspect, she was far too obvious. For example, I had just started to suspect the elderly woman’s companion, when she said this:

“Oh, I plan things,” said Mary vaguely. “In my mind, you know. And I like experimenting sometimes – upon people. Just seeing, you know, if I can make them react to what I say in the way I mean.” p. 101

Far too obvious, Mary clearly couldn’t be the killer. I suspected every – or nearly every – character at one point or another, but I never came close to understanding the murderer or the crime until the big reveal at the ending. It made perfect sense, the clues were all there, but I missed them entirely. I was ever so slightly disappointed with the story elements following the big reveal, but the mystery itself was perfect, and the tension Christie built leading up to the murder was beyond masterful. It is obvious upon reading Towards Zero why she has been outsold only by Shakespeare and The Bible. Highly recommended.

Buy this book from:
Powells | Indiebound*

Source: Publisher.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

Devourer of Books

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – Ordeal by Innocence discussion

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – And Then There Were None discussion

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – Ordeal By Innocence giveaway

The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie – Book Thoughts

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – Endless Night discussion

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – And Then There Were None giveaway

Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie – Book Thoughts

Cool Down with Agatha Christie – Standalones Readalong

Towards Zero by Agatha Christie – Book Review

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Sponsors:

Book Time with Bess read-along

Shelf Awareness for Readers eNewsletter

Giveaway

Recognition

Regular Features/Special Events

Check Me Out