A truly surprising collection of sub-par works by an author I personally think is a bit too exalted in the medium of murder mystery. I've done my fair share of reading of Christie and can say that a few of her stories are genuinely put together very well and are very fun to read. I cannot say that about this collection.
First of all only two of the stories contain Hercule Poirot, they are sandwiched at the beginning and end I believe to trick the reader into believing that what they read was good. The first story was probably the best. Peril At End House was fine, and I mean that. I was actually able to guess what happened pretty early on but a few of the finer points were lost on me. Poirot does his thing and all the usual cast of characters appear and stammer through a page or two at a time and the reveal is drawn out and theatrical and the guilty party is so overcome with rage that they confess to the crime. I finished it and had hopes for the future. 3/5
The murder at Hazelmoor was honestly stumping me for the longest time as I read. I'm not going to spoil anything but I will say that the ending thoroughly, an I mean THOROUGHLY, took the wind out of my sails. The stand in for Poirot was competent but it felt like such a rug-pull with no hints that I was just left shaking my head. 2/5
Easy to Kill was, again, fine. It did its job. Its so thoroughly unremarkable that I actually forgot about it in the time it took me to read this 700+ page tome. Not even a half baked romance stapled onto the end like she just had the letter laying around and just thought she'd better do something with them. An unsatisfying villain and again an incredible lack of clues. 2/5
Ten Little Indians, 80% of this story is absolutely phenomenal. Its psychological, its creepy, its unsettling in the best of ways...that other 20% though. The beginning 10% and the final 10% are an incredible bore and an insult to the reader (respectively). The beginning is so tedious and bland in exposition. 8 incredibly stuffy Brits and 2 kind of interesting people. And it jumps off with the death of one of the interesting people. I was actually having fun trying to figure things out and then got confused when there was only a few pages left...only for THAT to be the ending??? Are you serious? THAT? It felt like she wrote it and got to the end and had to figure out what the hell to do! 1/5
Evil Under the Sun. Blessedly short and to the point. Surely Poirot shines in these 150 pages right? Nope! There's a sizeable chunk where he doesn't do anything of note or consequence. Might as well just say "And Hercule Poirot was thinking very hard" Every 6 pages like keys in front of a baby. Wild, incredible jumps in logic and thought processes. An incredible missed opportunity! I'm going to spoil this one just so you know.
SPOILER SPOILER
The American couple, the Gardeners, could have very easily been part of a group of dope smugglers. They ask the question about how the drugs are getting into the country, they don't know. The husband is so quiet and reserved like the book keeps talking about. The wife disapproves of the victim and her antics. It would be SO EASY to make this a very clean story. Instead its all these double bluffs, fake outs and absolute nonsense. The only thing I liked was that Poirot for once wasn't fawning over a young girl (much) and actually LIKED another character besides Japp and Hastings. And once again, I say the only way to beat Poirot is to....NOT ADMIT THAT YOU DID THE VERY CLEVER CRIME. LIKE OH MY GOD. If he starts going through your plan step by bloody step and you can't keep a poker face. For the love of god just deny it! 1/5
This was an incredibly unpleasant read, it took me forever to finish it because every story consistently ending poorly for me. Wafer thin characters suddenly falling in love over the course of a couple pages, sometimes it felt like the book was saying something but I wouldn't understand it if I didn't live in 1930's England.
Maybe I'm missing the point of a mystery novel. I like to have some way to look back and say "Ah thats right, makes sense." but instead with most of Christie's books it feels like I'm reading 95% of it just to get to Hercule Poirot doing his big reveal. And most of the time he'll just say that something is something and must mean this and that. And as a reader you just have to go..."Yeah...I guess."
And another thing or two. Why the hell is the name Narracott(?) appearing in every damn story? Was it the equivalent of Smith in England? And why in the world were these stories put together in a collectiion? There's no theme, no consistent characters, setting, nothing. Did they just pull them out of a hat?