Before reading, I was certain this book wouldn’t captivate me that much, mostly anticipating an average read. That suspicion proved largely accurate, though there were moments where the author’s cleverness and craft really piqued my interest.It’s a classic murder mystery, of course. Though it is by no means a great book to me, I think it is impressively executed for a debut. For the most part, it was fairly entertaining and adopted an incisive, well-structured approach. The story, told through a...

I plan to rate all the books I read this year before writing my review for 2022 on Goodreads. I will write a few words about each unrated book and hopefully I will return with more when I have more time.

This is the 1st volume from the famous Hercule Poirot series and it shows. The writing style still needs some refining, same with the characters and plot. Still, a satisfying short mystery.

Agatha Christie begleitet mich eigentlich schon seit meiner Kindheit. Ich habe schon recht früh begonnen, ihre Bücher zu lesen und habe die meisten immer sehr gemocht.
Auch dieses Buch habe ich vor Jahren bereits gelesen, aber es war mal wieder Zeit für eine Wiederholung.
Ich mag es immer noch sehr! :)
Es ist ein klassischer, sehr unterhaltsamer Detektivroman. Hercule Poirot ist einfach unschlagbar.

To celebrate completing my 1000th book of the decade, I chose Agatha Christie’s first Hercule Poirot mystery novel for this reading slot. I am especially proud of this milestone because earlier in the decade when I was working full-time there was one month (September 2014) where I only read one book and two months where I only read two books (May and June 2012)!Agatha Christie wrote this novel in 1916, and it was first published in the United States by John Lane for $2.00 per copy in October 192...

Ok. Let's get down to business. This is an old fashioned British mystery novel. So much information! Trying to keep it all straight in my head was extremely difficult. My brain was all over the place but that's what makes a good mystery, in my opinion. This is the first book starring the world famous Hercule Poirot and his friend Hastings. Poirot is an eccentric detective from Belgium who fled to England during WWI. Hastings is a little on the dramatic side, always jumps to the wrong conclusions...

February has been a tough month for me this time around. I can't pinpoint it but there have been too many gray days even without the snow on the ground. Spring is mercifully around the corner and with it sun and happier reading times ahead. I tend to read mysteries as palette cleansers in between denser reads but at count I have read four mysteries this month and perhaps I can squeeze in another. In fact, February should be mystery month. On that note, what better way to spend the lingering wint...

If you've read my reviews before, you know I love mystery fiction, and in particular, the classics. Agatha Christie died in 1976, and I was born the following year. Two things come to mind... (1) It's a good thing I wasn't alive when she died because I would have been so miserable to be around. (2) Since I was born just about a year later, I'm wondering if maybe a small part of her lives on... as I love her genius and her works of literature... and I can re-read her books over and over again wit...

Choose Your Own Adventure!You are Captain Arthur Hastings, and you are slowly falling in love with a Belgian. The feelings are embarrassing at first; you find the Belgian himself to be quite an embarrassment. But there is just something about him. Could it be his suave, continental sense of humor... his keen sense of justice... his shapely, rubenesque figure? Or is it simply his hypnotic mustache, perhaps? The passion develops in fits and starts. You don’t want to love him, you really don’t. You...

"Dear me, Poirot," I said with a sigh, "I think you have explained everything! And how wonderful of you to wait until page 230 to finally shed light on all your absurd behavior throughout the book, and to justify and the red herrings and narrative padding! But of course, it could only be so in the classic style of a fiendish murder mystery! Why, in fact, though this is but the first case we have solved together, I have no doubt we could do the exact same thing as many as 86 more times, depending...

Poirot is introduced in this book, so how can you not love it?!Actually, pretty easily.This simply isn't Agatha Christie's best work.And that's mainly due to this being her first book. Yeah, so not only was she still figuring out who Poirot was, she was still figuring out this whole mystery writing gig. I mean, for her first stab at it, she did a phenomenal job. But if you go into this thing thinking you're going to get her best story, you'll more than likely be disappointed.Sorry, Hercule.For t...