Title: Death in the Clouds
Author: Agatha Christie
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 336
Rating 3.75/5
I hadn’t heard of this book before I saw it and bought it, and so I’m guessing it’s one of the lesser-known Hercule Poirot books. Still, I’m slowly working my way through all of Agatha Christie’s back catalogue and so it was inevitable that I’d eventually get to this one at some point or another.
It turned out to be pretty good, although I will concede that it was from Christie at her best. I also think that if you’ve read a lot of Christie’s work in the past, you’re going to find this one pretty predictable. It’s kind of obvious which clues are red herrings and which are important, even if you can’t figure out how that all comes together to point to the solution.
But I wasn’t too bothered about that anyway because I don’t really read murder mysteries to try to guess at the solution. That’s especially true with Agatha Christie, because the journey itself is such a pleasure that she makes it easy to keep on reading. Some of her characters were fantastic and much more three-dimensional than usual, while others were a little lackluster, which made it a mixed bag.
I also think that it had too much of a focus on blowpipes as a murder weapon, and I can say that because it isn’t a spoiler. It’s been overdone, although possibly just because Christie herself has been imitated so many times throughout the years, but really it felt like she was trying to be Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
All in all though, I’d definitely recommend this if you’re a Christie fan, and while it might not be the best story to start with, it’s worth grabbing if you see it in a charity shop.
