Novels – DaneCobain.com

Agatha Christie – The Listerdale Mystery | Review

Title: The Listerdale Mystery

Author: Agatha Christie

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 192

Rating: 4/5

This little collection of short stories was a lot of fun, but then I was always going to think that because I’m a big fan of Christie’s short fiction. It was also a pleasure to finally have a full collection to read, because the last few short story collections that I’ve picked up have been ones that included a ton of stories that I’d already read.

This might not be the best place to start if you’re new to Christie, but it does give you a pretty decent overall view of what her work is like, and you can read each of the stories as little standalones without any need to read previous novels or stories.

Overall then, if you spot this going cheap at a charity shop, definitely pick it up. Don’t go out of your way for it though, at least until you start to run out of other Christie books to read. As for me, I’m just a little sad because I’m starting to run out of her books.

Learn more about The Listerdale Mystery.

Louise Candlish – The Other Passenger | Review

Title: The Other Passenger

Author: Louise Candlish

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 411

Rating: 4/5

I was sent a signed copy of this book for free as part of a bookish subscription box that reached out to me, but I don’t think that will influence my review. Still, I guess that’s a disclaimer for you.

The theme of the box that I received was all about the commute and this was pretty much the perfect book for it because it was mostly set on the commuter boats that people take to get into the city. As for the genre, it’s basically as close to generic contemporary thriller as you can get, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

We have a lot of the classics tropes here, from an unreliable narrator to tons of twists and turns, complex interpersonal relationships and of course that little technique of jumping backwards and forwards through time to advance what’s happening in the present by bringing up something that happened in the past and which changes the way we look at things.

Other than that, I don’t really want to say too much about the plot, purely because as with most of these, half of the point is being taken by surprise. And I will say that while there were one or two things that I called pretty early on, there were also a couple of twists here and there that I didn’t spot.

It probably also helped that I received quite a nice edition of this, a hardback with the author’s signature in it, and so it was quite an aesthetically pleasing read, too. I can’t say that I’m the biggest fan of thrillers in general, as I tend to prefer either cosy mysteries, private detectives or gritty police procedural novels, but it certainly did the job and was a pleasant enough read, keeping me going until the end to find out the truth about what happened.

And that brings us on to the question of whether I’d recommend it or not, and that really depends upon the type of reader that you are. If you’re really into modern thrillers and you loved Gone Girl and Girl on the Train, you’re probably going to like this one. There are a ton of twists, more than I’ve seen in a novel of this size in quite a long time, and the characters are just warped enough to keep them interesting.

Learn more about The Other Passenger.