Title: Mrs McGinty’s Dead
Author: Agatha Christie
Type: Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 336
Rating 3.75/5
For some reason, this book wasn’t on my wish list, despite the fact that I’ve added – or at least, I thought I’d added – every Agatha Christie book to my wish list. I’d even heard my friend Mara from BooksLikeWoah on BookTube talk about it, and somehow it hadn’t twigged with me. Then I picked it up from a charity shop because I knew that I didn’t have it, and then when I went to add it to my currently reading list on Goodreads, I discovered what had happened.
I’m glad that I did get to it though, even if it isn’t necessarily my favourite of Christie’s books. It does have a few distinctive features though, such as the fact that the story revolves around a character who was dead at the beginning. In that respect, it reminds me a little bit of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, but with a uniquely Christie twist.
I usually say that with Christie, I find that either the characters or the setting stand out. Here, it was the characters, but only because of Mrs McGinty and because halfway through we see a familiar face in the form of Ariadne Oliver. She turns up after throwing an apple core out of a moving car and accidentally hitting Poirot.
All in all, I don’t think this is Christie’s best, but it is just fine and it successfully does what it sets out to do. It’s not about to creep into my all-time favourites list, but I’m definitely glad that I read it and that I didn’t accidentally miss it out. It’s kind of fortuitous that I just happened to spot it in a charity shop and also that I knew for sure that I hadn’t read it. If I’d checked my “to buy” list, I would have thought I’d already read it and passed it by. I’m feeling lucky.
