Jessica-sim’s Comments (group member since Jan 01, 2016)

Jessica-sim’s comments from the Reading the Detectives group.

I have decided to treat myself to my first vacation away from home in, yes, 6 years! I'll be going to the English Riviera in september next year, okay so it's very far away in time... but still! The more pre-fun I can have ;-). I will be going to the Agatha Christie Festival in Torquay, such fun

I approve!! And vow to be here for it

Audible has a dramatisation in their plus catalog and it’s such fun! 🤣
I don’t think it would work as a first time read, the characters aren’t really well introduced but if you’ve read it before it’s a nice new introduction to the story.

I’m happy everybody is enjoying themselves! This will be my third reread, going with audio this time. Starting off I think I remember everything…. Haha famous last words I probably forgot everything important 😂 here we go!

AC! Good to get back to base for a while. The new authors of this year’s challenge were ahum let’s say a wild ride for me 🙈

Mwah I don’t know. I’m not really vibing with these books. The period descriptions feel very affected. The bircher musli and toblerone better turn out to be the murder weapons for all the attention they’re getting

Ohhh no another hit or miss? I enjoyed jan and feb and didn’t like last month ah well this is a short one! At least in audio format and I have a lot of driving ahead of me so might finish in one day!

I’m not immediately sold on this one, so I came here to see what the general feeling is and look at that you all seem happy!
Okay, I’ll keep at it then 🤣

I finished the book and I enjoyed it mostly for the period details. I think the author evoked blitz life very well and I enjoyed the cameos of all the famous names.

The plot was less enjoyable and I wish that Ted and Foxy were at least included in the last chapter, we just left them somewhere behind never to be seen again. Actually there were a lot of unexplained moments that I even now don’t know why they were included or what they added.

I am looking forward to the second book but do sincerely hope that Guy has got his wits together by then because I found his slow-on-the-uptake level very tiring.

I found the camio of “my own” Queen from Oranje Nassau hiding in London instead hilarious and the very short appearance of her ridiculous husband also was spot on 😅

Ah… Nassau in the Bahamas! I’m glad I looked that up I kept placing the duke in Nassau Germany during these times, which would have been ridiculous, and was afraid my history knowledge was completely off 😅

I’m starting now! As we’re reading the first and second one this year the completionist in me fears that the third one needs to follow too 😅

Yay! I wasn’t able to participate this year due to tooo many things on my plate. I kept some Agatha’s in rotation but I miss this group and I love the yearly challenges!! So count me in for 2024

I share the mixed feelings, of course I also want more people to discover the delight of reading an Agatha Christie and maybe these editions make that possible. The reviews on GR for instance that focus only on the outdatedness also show me that the original text can take away from the reader’s joy significantly and those things shouldn’t be the focus of reading a detective story. Rewritting is so radical though, like there is no way back to the original. I worry that the edits may take away from clues or the overall joy that AC put in the text. I would like footnotes with the original text maybe

Sigh, sensitivity readers changed my beloved Agatha Christies. I hope the original will also stay available like with Roald Dahl.

As always I’m starting late in the month 😅. I wondered how I never heard of the writer but I see like he only wrote two detectives… but he was a member of the detective club and his books remained in print so it must be good!

I’m in!

I also haven’t read about many bodies found in libraries but did come across this pretty interesting article https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...

I really enjoyed this one and its full set of characters. The numbers of detectives on the case was almost equal to the number of suspects and still poor old Jane was the one making the necessary connections first.

The opening chapter….. or rather part I of chapter I… I love it so much! 😂 hilarious