Tag: Belgian

Agatha Christie – Partners in Crime | Review

Title: Partners in Crime

Author: Agatha Christie

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 352

Rating: 3.5/5

 

Agatha Christie - Partners in Crime

Agatha Christie – Partners in Crime

 

What we have here is one of Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence books, and so as such it’s not as good as some of Christie’s other work. I don’t think this should be discounted entirely though, because it’s an enjoyable enough read and I like the way that it was almost a cross between a novel and a short story collection.

Here, Tommy and Tuppence basically team up to form their own detective agency and then we follow them as they go from case to case. Some of them interrelate and some of them don’t, and some of them are much easier to figure out than others, but it’s still enjoyable enough. Plus I quite often found that the banter between Tommy and Tuppence was good enough to make the book worth reading in its own right.

That’s because the two of them were playing a game of sorts where they pretended to be detectives from their favourite crime novels, which means that Christie gets to play with tropes, reference Sherlock Holmes and even throw in subtle nods to her own novels, such as that certain Belgian detective with the little grey cells.
 

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie


 

At the same time, though, I also went through the last couple of hundred pages in a pretty much a blur, purely because it wasn’t holding my attention. It was okay, it just wasn’t the best, and it was nowhere near as good as the Miss Marple short stories, but it was still worth reading and I’m glad I can tick it off my list. The Tommy and Tuppence books are nowhere near as bad as people make them out to be, and they have a certain charm of their own that’s different to the Poirot and Marple books and which is almost like trying a slightly different flavour of a drink that you’ve always loved.

So should you read this? Absolutely, but only when you’ve already read a couple of dozen Agatha Christie books already. So yeah.

 

Agatha Christie Quote

Agatha Christie Quote

 

Click here to buy Partners in Crime.


Agatha Christie – Poirot’s Early Cases | Review

Title: Poirot’s Early Cases

Author: Agatha Christie

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 224

Rating: 7/10

 

Agatha Christie - Poirot's Early Cases

Agatha Christie – Poirot’s Early Cases

 

I’m a big fan of Poirot, the Belgian detective with the moustache and the egg-shaped head who’s Agatha Christie’s most famous creation. And in this book, we get to see some of his earliest cases, with one of them even taking place in Belgium when he was with the police. It’s a pretty good introduction to his back story, and while you don’t necessarily need to read it to get the most out of the other books, it certainly adds an extra angle.

Unfortunately, it was a little difficult to read, and I often found myself skim-reading or forgetting what was actually happening. Part of this can be attributed to the size of the print, which was tiny – I like old books like this, but it does get annoying when it’s hard to read them. It also means that it feels like you’re making slow going, which is a shame because the book was eminently readable and it was a lot of fun to go through it.

Overall then, I’d recommend it to you if you’ve already read some of the Agatha Christie books and enjoyed them, but it’s not the best place to start. There are loads of better places to begin!

 

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

 

Click here to buy Poirot’s Early Cases.