Title: Cards on the Table
Author: Agatha Christie
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 264
Rating: 4/5
I was hesitant about this book at first, because in the opening chapters a lot of time is given over to a card game, which I’ve never really enjoyed reading about in literature. I seem to recall reading a James Bond book that went on for about forty pages during a game of golf and I was worried that this was going to be the same.
Luckily, we quickly get to the murder of Mr. Shaitan, and after twenty pages of setup or so, we get to work on solving the mystery. Hercule Poirot is along for the ride, and so is Ariadne Oliver. I also thought that the pacing and the actual mystery itself were well done, and I can already tell that I’m going to remember this book for a while, even though it’s far from my favourite of Agatha Christie’s books.
I was also pleased with the solution to the mystery as a whole because even though there was a limited pool of suspects, I wasn’t able to guess it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind figuring out the solution before the big reveal at the end, but it does add a little something to the experience if you’re just as in the dark as the police force and the list of suspects.
Overall, this might not be the best place to start, but it is worth getting to not long after you get started.
