While romance is my genre of choice, when I stray it is always to mysteries. Lately my mystery reading has taken me to the historical and paranormal sub-genres, but my first love was of the cozy variety. I read many of Agatha Christie’s books back in high school but hadn’t read any in 20+ years. I remember liking almost everything she wrote, but the Miss Marple mysteries were my favorite. Something about a woman who is underestimated and overlooked but outwits everyone is very appealing […]
A good, warm Poirot to listen to on a cold, wintery day.
So I’m going to confess up front that I did a very bad thing. When I got about halfway through this, I decided it would be a great idea to spoil myself completely on the ending. I don’t know why I do this. It’s like once a mystery’s got me, I can’t even wait five minutes to find out how it turns out. Wikipedia and the Internet are terrible enablers in this habit of mine. And yes, I’ve done it before, though never to a […]
Mon cher Poirot
After my recent Alex Cross-athon, I felt I needed a palate cleanser. And what better, than to re-read some old favorites, by the grande dame of mystery herself, Agatha Christie? I first discovered Christie when I was about 10 or 11, prowling through my mother’s bookcases for something to read. I guess I had exhausted whatever I had taken home from the Bookmobile – probably Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins or a collection of folktales. The first Christie I read was The Moving Finger. I still have my mom’s paperback, with its lurid […]
“People in the dark are quite different, aren’t they?”
Once again guessed the murderer by complete accident. I’m the mystery reader equivalent of those characters you often see in farces who are complete idiots (usually lovable) and bumble about doing everything so wrong they come back around and get everything right. I really enjoyed this book, which was apparently Christie’s 50th (although publishers had to count a book of short stories to make this true, and they really wanted to, because publicists never change). It starts out kind of like a game. An ad […]