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Kavita

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Kavita is Currently Reading

Kavita is currently reading

The Big Four (Hercule Poirot, #5)

by Agatha Christie

bookshelves: mystery, uk, author-on-lsd, currently-reading

Reading for the 3rd time

read in May 2013

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Kavita said: " I can see many one and two star reviews for The Big Four. I can understand where they come from. The book is nothing like a normal Christie and the plot goes haywire with spies and international criminals running around all over the place. It is also I can see many one and two star reviews for The Big Four. I can understand where they come from. The book is nothing like a normal Christie and the plot goes haywire with spies and international criminals running around all over the place. It is also inconceivable to see Poirot, as good as he is, being so scary to those aiming for world domination! I mean, you are either a detective solving crimes or you are an international diplomat / spy. You can't be both!

The enemy here is an organisation called - you got it - The Big Four - named so, because it is run by four people. Three of them are white, and the invisible one is a Chinese. There are also a lot of Russians running about, completely unrelated to the main story. I think in Christie's mind, the Bolshevik Revolution was the coming of the end of the world, and the organising of the Big Four culminating in civilisation's downfall. I mean, whatever would happen to the moneyed people if the workers stood up for their rights? It means the end of the world, I tell you!

The book was published in 1927, ten years after the Bolshevik Revolution, and pretty much at the time when the Communist Party of China was trying to take hold of China. People like Christie and her ilk must have been shaking in their expensive leather boots. The funny part is that none of it hangs together properly. The four criminals are aiming for world domination, but why? They are mostly from the upper class in their countries, and one of them is stinking rich and could buy off countries. The stunts pulled by the Big Four also defy imagination and common sense. On the other side, we have Poirot armed with nothing but his little grey cells. It's just too much to suspend disbelief.

Christie never did write good spy thrillers, even though she tried her hand at them several times. But the positive of this book is that she simply seems to have gotten carried away and had the time of her life. The plots are really over the top and I am just picturing Christie laughing as she types away on her typewriter. For a similar reason, I really enjoyed the book despite its complete lack of value as a detective story. It's like a journey into a psychedelic Poirot world. ...more "

progress:

(page 82 of 272)
— May 14, 2013 09:20AM

Sep 19, 2019 01:38AM · see review

Kavita is currently reading

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #1)

by Satoshi Yagisawa

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Apr 05, 2026 01:36AM

Kavita is currently reading

The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy, #1)

by S.A. Chakraborty (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Apr 03, 2026 02:15PM

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Kavita’s Quotes

“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”
― Desmond Tutu

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“If there's a God out there, then i would hope he has more important things to attend to than my drinking scotch or eating pork.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner: A Portrait of the Epic Film

tags: atheist, belief, god

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“Many people have been protesting against what they describe as censorship on Goodreads. I disagree. In fact, I would like to say that I welcome the efforts that Goodreads management is making to improve the deplorably low quality of reviewing on this site.

Please, though, just give me clearer guidelines. I want to know how to use my writing to optimize Amazon sales, especially those of sensitive self-published authors. This is a matter of vital importance to me, and outweighs any possible considerations of making my reviews interesting, truthful, creative or entertaining.”
― Manny Rayner

tags: goodreads

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