Another Halloween treat this weekend from my guest reviewer and ‘lil star, Claire Knight! It’s Agatha Christie’s Halloween Party! ?
Synopsis:
A teenage murder witness is drowned in a tub of apples…
At a Hallowe’en party, Joyce – a hostile thirteen-year-old – boasts that she once witnessed a murder. When no-one believes her, she storms off home. But within hours her body is found, still in the house, drowned in an apple-bobbing tub.
That night, Hercule Poirot is called in to find the ‘evil presence’. But first he must establish whether he is looking for a murderer or a double-murderer…
Claire’s Rating: ? 4/5 ?
Claire’s Review:
Halloween Party is one of the Poirot stories I wasn’t familiar with and as All Hallows’ Eve is approaching, I thought it time to jump back into the Belge’s world. This one has a sinister start with the murder of a young girl at a Halloween party organised for the “11+” of Woodleigh Common. The child is known to be a liar and rather boastful and in the hours before the party, she is talking about witnessing a murder; did she or didn’t she? Either way, she paid with her life.
I do enjoy reading Dame Christie’s writing. It’s not something you can pick up and put down. You have to finish chapters (well that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!). As many of her stories were written in the early to mid 20th century, the language is different to today’s modern writing. She uses what today would be classed as anti PC language – take a wild guess what “half baked people” means! ?
Language isn’t the only thing that has changed. At one point the detective is discussing an au pair who disappeared possibly home to Eastern Europe and another character pipes up “you can go on a day trip to the continent without a passport”! Just imagine that!!
In my book, Poirot is a lovable character, he asks the simplest of questions and extracts all sort of information out of the people he talks to…”I play the part of the computer. One feeds in the information…” And he seems to know everyone! Well, he has a lot of contacts up and down the country!
Despite being written nearly 50 years ago, I really enjoyed this outing of Monsieur Poirot. I will slowly work my way through his, Miss Marple’s and Tuppence and Tommy’s investigations. But unlike the Waterstones book seller I met this week, I won’t be reading them back to back which took him 2 years!!
Another awesome review from Claire! If this book piques your interest, it is currently on 99p and can be downloaded by clicking the link below!
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