Book challenges

The ABC Murders (Read Christie Challenge, March 2026): Book Which Made the Biggest Impact on Me as a Young Reader

28th March 2026 by claireladds Leave a Comment

March’s Read Christie 2026 theme has been to choose and read one of Agatha Christie’s books which made the biggest impact on me as a young reader. With a prompt such as this, choices for every single reader are going to be intensely personal and individualised ones. I smiled when I saw the remit for this month because I was able to go straight to my bookcase and pick up a novel without hesitation. My choice for March is The ABC Murders. Let me explain why this has been, and will no doubt be, the easiest reading decision I make for this challenge and probably for the entire year.

So, what is The ABC Murders about? Before I go any further, I’ll give a brief explanation. Hercule Poirot receives a letter, telling him a murder has been committed in Andover – but this is a strange missive, as it comes directly from the murderer, typed, mocking Poirot and daring him to do something about it, and about the murders which threaten to follow. Indeed, the next one will be in Bexhill. The letter is signed ‘A.B.C.’. Poor Mrs Asher who runs a sweet shop in Andover is the first unfortunate corpse. So begins a series of deaths, always with a copy of the ABC railway guide left behind. Poirot, assisted by Hastings, and with Inspector Japp also joining them on the trail, need to capture this murderer as every part of the country begins to wait for it to be its turn and the victims use up all the letters of the alphabet. Meanwhile, the mentally fragile Alexander Bonaparte Cust has just been given a job selling stockings. He has all his equipment for finding his customers all across England: the stockings in a case, a typewriter, and copies of the ABC railway guide…

I was fascinated by this story, the way it built upon itself piece by piece, by the investigation and the clues until they converged in an ingenious solution right at the end, and, of course, by the distinctive characters on both sides of the moral and legal fence. If you’ve read any number of my blog posts and articles, or you follow me on social media (@claireladdsauthor, if you’d like to), you might know that I have an enduring love affair with all things Agatha Christie. This certainly isn’t because I write mysteries myself, or not in the way readers interpret conventional ‘mystery fiction’, certainly. Writers don’t write in every genre that they read. I have an immense respect for mystery fiction authors; the plotting of the crime or mystery has to be intricate and finely woven with breadcrumbs of detection and clues interspersed with red herrings, all while ensuring the characters are wonderfully developed and function as they need to. This respect I have was planted the day my dad came home from town with a copy of The ABC Murders.

I remember vividly Dad presenting it to me, as a ten-year-old. He already knew I was the kind of reader who devoured The Secret Seven (I wanted to be one of them. I’d have volunteered to be Scamper the dog’s next biscuit if it meant I could get in that shed and listen in on the secret conversations). Dad had also bought me some of the Famous Five and Nancy Drew books and had watched me devour them. But this present, on this evening, felt like something else, something special. He told me he had seen it and thought I would like reading it. Why this particular Christie book, I have no idea, but I did know that he’d bought it from our local bookshop, and I also knew that the entire middle section of the shop had multiple bookcases which only housed Agatha Christie books, with roughly ten copies of each one on the shelves. It was a sight to behold, and I used to spend ages staring at it when I went into the shop, no doubt much to the secret irritation of the man who ran the fountain pen section directly opposite. Having me propped incessantly against his glass counter I imagine did his pen sales no good at all. To his absolute credit, he was a very lovely elderly gentleman who never once asked me to move, even a little bit.

As a young reader, this was a pivotal moment in my reading. It was an indelible mark in my mind that I’d gone ‘up in the world’, had become an adult reader. This change in mindset paved the way for, not only my devoted and voracious devouring of Christie books, but also many others. My bookshelves have filled non-stop ever since, not only with Agatha Christie, but with so many kinds of books which have interested me over the years. I did move to either side of the Christie shelves in the shop (eventually, and every so often as curiosity and the need to regain bloodflow in my bookcase-rooted body drove me), to the works of the Bronte sisters, and of Thomas Hardy, and Keats and Daphne du Maurier, and Jean Rhys and Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Aeschylus and so many Ancient Greek and Roman writers, and … the list was endless, because I felt I was allowed to read beyond children’s books. That one igniting incident of being given The ABC Murders had fuelled my fire as a lifelong reader and had given me permission to explore the worlds between the pages, and to expand. It was as if my imagination had been given wings and it flew and flew, never running out of energy because it was constantly being fed.

My imagination had, of course, also been given Hercule Poirot. Dad could not have picked a protagonist more perfect for me. From the moment I began reading about him, I adored him. It led me to spend an inordinate amount of time preventing customers from seeing the full range of fountain pens available in my local bookshop’s beautiful pen section because I spent every spare minute gazing upon the Christie bookshelves, with a voracious need to hunt down every Poirot story I could lay my hands on. To aid me in my Poirot hunt and beyond, I typed up an alphabetical list on my clunky, manual typewriter, so I could tick off every Christie book I bought and read. I still have that original list somewhere. My utter adoration of Poirot from the outset has also led to many hundreds (or likely thousands) of hours watching film and TV adaptations of the Poirot books, too. This has been my solace and comfort blanket on many, many occasions, and my obsession. Even my Masters dissertation was written on Agatha Christie’s books and adaptation! This is the wonderful thing about reading. It can lead you down so many rabbit holes of complete joy and fulfilment, specific to you.

Ultimately, what I can wholeheartedly say is that, while I love the book itself, it has always been much less about the story within The ABC Murders than receiving the novel as a representation of adult fiction which has caused it to be the Agatha Christie book which has made the biggest impact on me as a young reader. I doubt my dad could have guessed at the impact giving me that one Agatha Christie book would have on the rest of my life. But I’m unendingly grateful for it. I often hear people telling me that it was ‘X’ book which hooked them on reading. I’ve been hooked all my life. It’s why, as a young reader, I always hoped for a book as a present, and as an adult I have no hesitation in giving them as gifts. I would urge anyone to give a book to someone; you never know – it could be you who begins their love for literature, and a gift that will last a lifetime.

Death on the Nile (Read Christie Challenge, February 2026): Book Containing Beloved Characters

27th February 2026 by claireladds 2 Comments

February’s task for the Read Christie 2026 challenge, as set by the Agatha Christie team, has been to read a book containing ‘beloved characters’. The team chose Mrs McGinty’s Dead, and it’s a great choice, featuring as it does both Hercule Poirot and Ariadne Oliver. As with January’s read, I have chosen to deviate from the suggested novel to reflect on my own choice for a book with characters beloved to me: Death on the Nile.

As with the Christie team’s choice, mine also contains Hercule Poirot, who happens to be my absolute favourite Christie detective, and possibly my favourite detective of all time. He was the first detective I encountered in adult crime novels, when my dad bought me a copy of The ABC Murders. I devoured it at the age of ten and became completely devoted to all of the Poirot stories. Without really realising it, I had also encountered Poirot much earlier, growing up as I did on Sunday afternoon cinematic films on the TV, several of which were the Peter Ustinov versions of Poirot, glamorous films, with Death on the Nile being one I saw multiple times, and also featuring the wonderful David Niven as Colonel Race. Moving on several decades, the David Suchet version of Death on the Nile is one of my favourite films in which he played Poirot. With all that in mind, I was always likely to be drawn to this novel like a moth to a flame. And it is the characters in the novel that I will discuss here.

Hercule Poirot

Out of all of Christie’s novels which involve recurring characters, it is Poirot who is my enduring love. I’m not even sure I can fully explain, even to myself, why he intrinsically appeals to me. What I do know is that I love his quirky dress and mannerisms, and the way he goes about picking at the carcass of a crime, piece by piece, until all the scraps of clues have been used up and explained. I also find it very endearing that he has such a humble backstory, one of being a child of a large family who had to make a success of himself to support them. A man who was injured during the First World War and was taken care of by a woman in England (and if you read The Mysterious Affair at Styles you will get a fuller flavour of this), and has a strong appreciation of poverty and desperation, and of skills of workers, which makes him an empathetic detective who treats a Duchess in the same way as he treats her maid (or, indeed, in Death on the Nile, the downtrodden, poor relation in the same way as the high-born, wealthy one).

Most of all, I love his approach to the human side of crime. He knows that, somewhere at the heart of the motive, is something intensely personal which reflects the way the victim lived their life and how it impacted the people around them. And he also shows himself to be, not just a problem-solving machine, but a human, too, considering the feelings of other people in the case, showing empathy, sympathy and, indeed, humanity. There are several cases he solves whereby he allows justice to take its course in an unconventional way. This is one of those cases, and highlights Poirot’s knowledge and acceptance that, sometimes, there are morally grey areas to consider, along with intertwined compassion for the perpetrator as well as the victim. This is, of course, Poirot’s subjective view, but it leaves the reader with plenty to consider: how would we have handled the final dishing out of justice?

The underrated sidekick

Now we turn to the sidekick. Ex-MI5 agent, Colonel Race is deployed by Christie in this role here. He appears part-way through, and is there to do some investigating of his own (the sub-plot of which I won’t spoil here). I always enjoy an appearance by Colonel Race; I find him a truly likeable man and a consummate professional, therefore a great extension of Poirot’s own impeccably performed investigations. It is interesting to watch these two professionals work through their findings. An appearance by Colonel Race always means that something much wider-reaching than a crime motivated by the private and personal is lurking in the background, which gives an extra edge of danger to the atmosphere, and therefore joining his investigations with Poirot’s reminds us that the world can be a dangerous place, both without and within our own lives. For me, Colonel Race is one of Christie’s underrated characters.

Impassioned suspect

I’ve alluded to the crimes I feel Christie is particularly expert at creating: those seeded in the intensely personal. These frequently interweave with the emotional, and are character-driven. And, as we know, getting inside the head of the people close to a crime is Poirot’s forte! There are few characters in any of Christie’s novels in which the emotional comes into play as much as in the initial prime suspect here, the impassioned Jacqueline de Bellefort. She is immediately suspected of the killing of Linnet Doyle, her former best friend who stole her ex-fiancée, Simon Doyle, and married him within weeks. After this devastation to her life, we next meet her as she follows the newly-weds to all the locations of their exotic honeymoon and confesses to Poirot that she has strong desire to shoot Linnet. Poirot both sympathises with her desperate emotions and is extremely fearful that such strength of feeling leaves Jacqueline herself in danger from her own passions.

Jacqueline frequently lingers in my mind when I think of Christie novels. Her emotional intensity has stayed with me from the very first time I read about her, decades ago. She is one of those stand-out characters who make me consider whether my actions would have matched hers, should I have been placed in her situation (which contains such huge spoilers that I cannot detail them here), and has gone a long way to inform me, as a writer, how someone could be driven almost entirely by the emotions burning within them. I believe that Death on the Nile is worth reading to follow Jacqueline’s story alone.

Other enduring characters to give us pause for thought

There are other truly enduring characters for me in this book. Once again, my choices revolve around the human qualities with which Christie has endowed them. I want to focus, in this section, then, on the mothers, and their younger female counterparts. Two mother stand out: the tormented Mrs Otterbourne, writer of romance which has been shunned by the libraries and increasingly her readership, and has turned to drink, and Mrs Allerton, possibly the most kind and caring mother that Christie ever wrote about in her fiction. The absolute pain of Mrs Otterbourne, which plays out in the tempestuous relationship she has with her long-suffering daughter, Rosalie, is placed into opposition with the almost idealised mothering of Mrs Allerton. She is an extremely endearing person, whom Poirot likes immensely, and who is ultimately able to provide comfort and love to Rosalie in a very humble, selfless manner. As a reader, I can’t help but feel desperately sorry for one, and admire the way the other is prepared to take on a ‘found family’ mother-daughter dynamic, based purely on her innate kindness of soul. Combined, they leave us with a lingering unease around the concept of motherhood, and the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship.

There are two other characters I would like to make mention of here, too: Rosalie Otterbourne, long-suffering daughter of the aforementioned Mrs Otterbourne, and Cornelia, poor and downtrodden relation of the high-born Mrs Van Schyler who has a secret. I have immense sympathy for Rosalie, dealing as she does with the difficulties of her mother’s professional and personal downfall, and struggling with her own entanglements of resentment of her mother and her undeniable love for her. Cornelia, by contrast, is blissfully unaware that she is being treated abominably by her rich relation and is grateful for the opportunities afforded her in being allowed to come on the excursion down the Nile. This unawareness and her accompanying obliging behaviour, led by the controlling Mrs Van Schyler, is what makes me have huge sympathy for Cornelia. However, what I love about both Rosalie and Cornelia is their strength of character, Rosalie’s which has had to be of a sustained nature to protect her mother, and Cornelia’s, ultimately, in choosing to follow her own path of love, unrelated to social position or money, both of which she could have and which would give her a ‘better’ life.

So then, for me, Death on the Nile contains very particular kinds of ‘beloved characters’: the repeat characters who are respectful and consummate professionals, and the women who fill this entire novel with everything it is to be human: the passion, suffering, resilience and, yes, love. In saying this, I am, of course, very aware of the discrepancy between gender roles and that males are given that of logical fact-finder and puzzle-solver whereas women are given the roles of the impassioned, the reactive, driven by a need of some kind. Yet, heading towards a hundred years after the book was written, this is what makes the women in particular stand out as sympathetic, real people, of their era and beyond, and I love that. There are other men in this novel whose actions provide the plot points for the story, such as the thief, or the fraudulent professional, yet continually it is the women who provide the heart of the story so that it is not merely a two-dimensional puzzle (and Christie’s books never are! If you don’t believe me, then I urge you to read Endless Night or And Then There Were None). This gender separation throughout may even be why the book ends with the promise of marriage between a man and woman who find a tempered middle ground between hard, factual logic and passionate interiority, thus drawing together facets of both. Could it even be Christie suggesting that extremes of either are unhelpful to us if we want to live a happy life? I’ll let you decide.

Spell the Month in Books: August

7th August 2021 by claireladds Leave a Comment

It’s August and here in the UK it’s the height of summer (as I write this it’s pouring with rain!). When I was a kid, I was often encouraged to go outside and play in the lovely weather. Truth be told, all I really wanted to do was to curl up in a corner and read a book, hoping that the summer holidays would pass quickly and I could go back to school. I absolutely loved school, and I couldn’t stand the hot weather, so six weeks off was like torture. Luckily, I loved being at home, too, and I created reading areas in the shade. One year, my neighbourhood friends and I used my dad’s trailer shelter as a den. It was pretty good reading in there, too, if somewhat dark! (This same den is fictionalised in my Hearts & Crimes novel, The Secrets That Haunt Us).

Suffice to say that summertime became a reading frenzy for me. If you’d like a bit of mystery-oriented summer reading, then just maybe I can help you out with my August Spell the Month in Books list.

Anthem for Doomed Youth – Carola Dunn

This is the 19th Daisy Dalrymple book, and I am hooked on them! I have really enjoyed following Daisy’s exploits and the developments in her life. Daisy herself is perfectly feisty and astute, while maintaining a great wit and managing her relationships with her “interesting” family members, and her romance with DCI Alec Fletcher.

Anthem for Doomed Youth sees Daisy visiting their daughter at school – to the relief of Alec’s boss who warns Alec to keep Daisy from meddling in their newest case. Three unidentified bodies have turned up in Epping Forest, shot through the heart and Scotland Yard wants it cleared up ASAP. But just because Daisy isn’t there, doesn’t mean she’s not entangled in murder. And she can’t really help herself because a teacher at their daughter’s school ends up dead…

If you like 1920s murder mysteries with a light-handed touch, then the Honourable Daisy Dalrymple might just be your cup of aristocratic tea.

Unexpected Guest (The) – Agatha Christie (play novelised by Charles Osborne)

I became a real fan of Agatha Christie’s plays a number of years ago, some of which I have as an original stage play, and some which have been novelised. My version of The Unexpected Guest is a novelisation of Agatha Christie’s play, written by Charles Osborne, but I’ve linked above to the original stage play.

A man manages to send his car into a ditch in South Wales on a dreadful foggy night. Having escaped the car, he seeks out shelter and finds an isolated house. When he enters through the patio doors, he discovers a woman standing over her exceedingly dead, wheelchair-bound husband, complete with a gun in her hand. The man says he will help her create a cover story. But it’s clear that the woman is not guilty of murder – so who is she protecting? There are a whole house-full of suspects, and it must be one of them. But who?

I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending this book. Christie’s original play is fantastic and this novelisation has been exceedingly well written by Charles Osborne. The mystery runs hand-in-hand with suspense. What I particularly love about this is that the narrator is not completely clean cut and innocent – after all, he does offer to concoct an alibi for someone who appears to be a murderer! I’m really glad I chose this book for my August list as the play itself had its debut performance on 12th August, 1958 and it’s been performed many, many times since!

Guilty Consciences – Ed. Martin Edwards

This is a crime collection I have had on my shelf for a while and am ashamed to say that I haven’t yet read from cover to cover. Of course, books of short stories have the advantage that you can read them (usually) in any order.

This anthology brings together seventeen stories by members of the Crime Writers Association, and includes stories by esteemed authors such as Ann Cleeves, Peter James and HRF Keating, among others. The stories I have read so far have all the hallmarks of great mysteries and I am absolutely sure that I’m going to love reading the entire collection.

I would have loved to have linked to this book for you, but I haven’t been able to find it at the time of writing. If I do come across a copy, I’ll add it in here as an update.

Unnatural Habits – Kerry Greenwood

I first came across Kerry Greenwood’s mystery novels set in 1920s Australia and which give us the exploits of the high society Phryne Fisher as a series on the TV. I enjoyed the Phryne Fisher Mysteries series so much that I began buying the novels, and I haven’t been disappointed.

Phryne and her maid-sidekick, Dot, get to investigate when young, pretty, blonde girls begin to go missing from the Magdalene laundry. All of them are pregnant and there’s a big cover-up afoot. But Phryne has no intention of allowing these girls to vanish into oblivion.

What I really enjoy about Phryne is her feistiness and her refusal to give up on anyone, regardless of race or class. She treats everyone equally and, despite social tensions, she has the ability to cross those invisible borders and isn’t above investigating the most heinous and lowlife of crimes. Her sense of justice is profound. She is one of my favourite high society female sleuths.

Something Wicked – David Roberts

Originally, I think I bought this book for two reasons: firstly, I had just completed my Masters dissertation which I wrote on Agatha Christie, and the main text that I worked with was the Tommy and Tuppence novel, By the Pricking of my Thumbs; secondly the title reminded me of the Ray Bradbury book, Something Wicked This Way Comes. It was a bit of a foregone conclusion, therefore, that I’d end up buying Something Wicked!

However, I have not actually read this book (hence no recommendation link), but I can tell you what it is about. This is book 8 of a 10 book series about Lord Edward Corinth and Verity Browne. Verity has returned to England with suspected tuberculosis, and also now engaged to Lord Edward. She checks into a clinic where – surprise, surprise – Edward has to go and investigate a series of murders. He’s there because his dentist has died rather suspiciously, and so have two other patients. As war approaches and hangs over them all, Edward and Verity need to find out what, or who is casting a shadow of threat over them.

Two for Sorrow – Nicola Upson

This novel is part of the series of mysteries which fictionalise the author Josephine Tey as sleuth. In this novel, Josephine wants to write about the perpetrators of a thirty year old baby farming case. Her friend, Inspector Archie Penrose, is on a case involving the murder of a seamstress which at first glance seems to be part of a domestic fight. But it becomes clear that her death is linked to another murder – and someone wants the past to remain buried.

I find the Josephine Tey books to be extremely in depth and darker than a lot of “cozy” mystery fiction set in between the wars. Personally, I like this more sinister element of the cozy. To my mind, cozy crime fiction does not have to be light-hearted; its defining feature is that it does not have bloodshed “on the page”. Nicola Upson’s series delves deeply into the darker motivations and means of criminals, and it feels to me very much like historical crime fiction. Maybe it’s because my own work has a dark edge that I like the Josephine Tey series as much as I do.

Well, there you have it: my Spell the Month in Books for August. As always, for transparency, some of the books I mention contain my affiliate links for US readers. I only ever use affiliate links on books I have personally read and have enjoyed. You can search for the books without clicking through on this post, of course! 🙂

I hope that a book or two that I’ve mentioned here might encourage you to try a new author or a new crime and mystery-filled book, be it a novel or a short story collection. Have you read any of my August list, or are any of them among your favourites? Be sure to tell me in the comments.

Spell the Month in Books: July

6th July 2021 by claireladds Leave a Comment

A new month brings a new blog post in which I spell the month in books. There was no post for June, due to various reasons, but I’m back again now!

This is a short month – in letters, anyway, so I have just four books for you. As usual, I’m putting my own crime spin on this book challenge, and there are a couple of my favourite detectives in this month’s haul. So, without further ado, let’s see what I’ve got in my bookstack.

Jewel that was Ours (The) – Colin Dexter

I’ve said before that I love Inspector Morse, whether it’s the novels or the TV series. This novel is no exception.

Oxford is used to having international visitors, and 27 American tourists is just par for the course. But then one of them turns up dead in his hotel room. To all intents and purposes, it looks like a terrible accident. Yet an antique has been taken from the man’s pocket, and no one seems to care. No one except Morse. When two days after this dreadful occurrence, a naked and battered body is found in the river, Morse is determined to prove that there’s a link between the two deaths.

It’s great to ‘watch’ Morse at work, solving the crimes while negotiating his way around the visiting Americans. Morse’s feel for the respectable and the rumbling irritability that often lurks within him always make such quietly amusing contrasts as he goes about his detection. Oh, and if you’ve never watched the Inspector Morse series, I thoroughly recommend it. It’s not for those who want a fast-paced detective programme, but if you like your detecting to be somewhat more cerebral, and if you love the idea that Oxford – including its university – is the setting, then this is for you.

Under the Dragon’s Tail – Maureen Jennings

When an abortionist is murdered, it comes as no great surprise to Murdoch, because she was a greedy woman who held her ‘clients’ in contempt. She may have been very discreet, but she left too many people who crossed her path angry at their treatment. Then a boy is found murdered in the abortionist’s kitchen. Why? Murdoch doesn’t know, and what’s more puzzling and disturbing is that he isn’t sure if he’s on the hunt for two separate killers, or whether there’s a link between the murders and he’s searching for just one. But who could want an abortionist and a boy dead?

Victorian/Edwardian surroundings, progress and inventions fascinates me. I recommend Murdoch Mysteries to anyone who loves a cozy mystery and a great detective story with strong characters.

Love Lies Bleeding – Edmund Crispin

I have a set of half a dozen Edmund Crispin novels involving the English professor and amateur sleuth, Gervase Fen, on my shelf, and I am sad to say that I have not yet had the opportunity to read any of them. However, I have started this one and I can say that the humour woven into the Gervase Fen books has already had me sporting a wry smile while I’m reading, and sometimes laughing out loud.

Professor Fen has been invited to hand out the prizes at Castrevenford school’s Speech Day. But trouble isn’t very far away, as the night before he is due to fulfil his engagement, two staff members end up dead. Gervase Fen is asked to put his sleuthing powers to work and find out what happened, and all kinds of shenanigans ensue!

This is a classic Golden Age mystery, with the added quirkiness and comedy not always found in all Golden Age mysteries. If you like a light-hearted tone in your mystery, then Gervase Fen might be the sleuth for you.

You Let Me In – Lucy Clarke

Finally, after using this book in previous Spell the Month in Books posts (who’d have thought I’d have such difficulty finding a crime book on my shelves beginning with a ‘y’?!), I have managed to read the novel! I can most definitely say that I’m glad that I did.

Elle hasn’t felt right since she moved into her rented house. She has the creepy feeling that someone is watching her. Everything about the atmosphere feels – strange. But she convinces herself that it’s her own imagination because she’s a writer. And she’s likely to have strange imaginings because of that, isn’t she? As paranoia and terror takes over, she knows someone is out to get her…

I absolutely loved this! I have no intention of spoiling the story, but I will say that if suspenseful books are for you, then this is a book you definitely have to read!

So, there we have it, the first post about crime, mystery and dark books for the second half of the year (where is the time going?!). Next month my Spell the Month in Books post will be a bit longer. August has more letters! 😁 If you try any of these books, or you’ve read them, do feel free to let me know in the comments. As always, my disclaimer: this post contains a few affiliate links if you’re an Amazon US user, but only to books I’ve personally read and recommend.

If you want to tell me what you’ve been reading, or are planning to read this month, you can tell me in the comments, or find me on Facebook or Instagram. And if you’ve read one of my books, I’d love to hear from you! New ones are in the pipeline. More on those very soon…

***

Lastly…

Would you like to join my Readers’ Club? You’ll get to be among the first to hear about my books, be told of any special – and even exclusive – offers, get more crime book talk and lots of other good stuff. There’s an exclusive, FREE, welcome gift of Beneath the Flesh waiting for you if you choose to sign up. Just click below.

Get a short, FREE and exclusive psychological thriller when you join my Reader’s Club

Spell the Month in Books: May

4th May 2021 by claireladds 5 Comments

Welcome to my Spell the Month in Books for May. With only three letters in the month, this is going to be a pretty short post!

Once again, I couldn’t resist including an Agatha Christie book. The film adaptation of the novel I have chosen is one of my favourites. I’ve also included a book from a lovely series of hard-to-get and forgotten mystery novels, brought back to life by the British Library Crime Classics series. And blimey, who knew I’d still be having problems finding paperbacks on my shelf beginning with a ‘y’?! Anyway, without further ado, here are my choices for this month.

Murder in Piccadilly – Charles Kingston

Bobbie Cheldon’s ideas of love and marriage vary greatly from the woman who captures his heart in a Soho nightclub. Whereas he is looking for the perfect marriage, Nancy the dancer is much more interested in the money that Bobbie will inherit from his wealthy uncle. But there is a problem – Bobbie’s uncle isn’t going to hand over ten thousand pounds a year to make Nancy’s life more comfortable, just because she thinks it’s a great idea! But there may be a solution, and it leaves the way open for murder. Chief Inspector Wake of Scotland Yard has to untangle all sorts of scandalous Soho shenanigans in order to get to the truth.

This was my first British Library Crime Classics purchase and since then I have gathered a number of them and have really enjoyed all the ones I have read so far. It’s wonderful, being able to gain access to stories through the British Library Classics editions that you struggle to get hold of otherwise. I’m gradually working through the collection. In fact, I remember mentioning that I fancied collecting them, and, come Christmastime, found myself unwrapping half a dozen of them from my kids. If you enjoy Golden Age mysteries you may well love these books.

Appointment with Death – Agatha Christie

The American Lady Boynton is a widow, ridiculously wealthy – and also a hideous human being. So when she is discovered by members of her dysfunctional family, sitting there, surveying her surroundings, and with a puncture mark on her wrist as the only sign that she has been murdered by a lethal injection, there are plenty who are in the frame as suspects. Even Poirot thinks she was a dreadful woman, but he has just 24 hours to discover her killer.

I really loved this novel, for its characters, its plot and for the many possible reasons the truly hateful Mrs Boynton could have been murdered. It kept me guessing at every turn. I remember reading this book when I was in my twenties, and being thoroughly absorbed by it, so much so that I dreamt about the characters for weeks. I’ve also watched the film of the book starring Peter Ustinov several times. I re-read it more recently after watching the film adaptation starring David Suchet on countless occasions, and was fascinated by the differences between the original novel (and the Ustinov film) and the TV film starring David Suchet as Poirot. For me, the changes in location, plot and the motivations driving various events are just brilliant, but I won’t spoil it for you. I do believe, however, that you will get very different experiences from reading the book and watching the more recent Suchet film (and if you happen, like me, to like John Hannah, then you’ll definitely get an experience from watching the film!)

You Let Me In – Lucy Clarke

Since Elle rented her house, things have seemed strange. There is a weird atmosphere, and she has this really creepy feeling that someone is watching her. She tries to convince herself that it’s her writing job, her imagination, that is causing the problems. But as threats come in that are all too personal, and she becomes more and more paranoid, everything about her new home becomes a prison she can’t escape. Just who has found a way into her head and is doing this to her?

I still can’t tell you from personal experience what I think of this book, as it’s stuck in my TBR pile, and likely to be there for some time yet. But I bought it because it sounds creepy, and brilliant, and I can definitely tell you that I’ve read some fantastic reviews about it from book reviewers on Instagram. I’m very much looking forward to reading it.

There you go – short(ish) and sweet! Or at least short and crime-filled. 😊 Have you read any of the books I’ve mentioned this time round, or do you have any crime books that you’d love to recommend to others? Do feel free to pop them in the comments, if so.

Read Christie 2021: my April book choice – The Seven Dials Mystery

25th April 2021 by claireladds Leave a Comment

Read Christie 2021 April: The Seven Dials Mystery

This month I have chosen to read The Seven Dials Mystery as part of the Read Christie 2021 challenge. The remit for this month was to read a story which was written before World War II. There are a number to choose from but I chose The Seven Dials Mystery because I haven’t read this book for decades. I have to say that I absolutely loved revisiting it and read it in one day, which is something I hardly every do!

This is very much a ‘young person’s adventure’ plot and also sees Christie returning to some of the characters who had their first adventure in The Secret of Chimneys. If you have read Chimneys, and recognise the mansion, you’ll probably also recognise the name of Lady Eileen Brent, commonly known as Bundle, who lives at Chimneys with her father and is irrepressible in her pursuit of the truth.

This time, Bundle and her father come back from a holiday abroad to find that a man belonging to a party of people who were renting Chimneys has died in one of their bedrooms. It certainly makes Bundle’s father give second thoughts to renting out their home while they are away in future!

It doesn’t take long for Bundle and her adventurous friends to decide that this man was murdered. The situation becomes graver when another friend dies, his last words being the mysterious ‘seven dials’.

This phrase takes Bundle and her crime-busting friends to Soho, and the discovery of masked members of The Seven Dials Society, who meet in a secret room. Who are they, and what are they planning? And were they responsible for the killings?

This book also reintroduces Superintendent Battle, who occurs in several Christie novels as the presiding investigating officer. Battle is a large man but with a very astute, softly-softly approach to getting things done. Battle acts as an enabler to Bundle’s wish to act as sleuth by giving her permission to do so, and often both of them are present as events pile up and things get most and more mysterious – and dangerous. But Bundle proves herself extremely capable of figuring out what’s been going on, surprising Battle on more than one occasion with her capabilities.

This is very much a relatively fast-moving adventure with plenty of intrigue, secrets and shenanigans. There are also some very wry twists in the plot that couldn’t help but make me smile. So much of this story is like real life in that whatever we see and believe is based on what we expect to be the case and on our preconceptions about people.

If you love Christie’s light-hearted adventure mystery novels then I think you’ll enjoy this one. Next month’s Read Christie book has to be one which features tea. I’m going to return to my favourite of Christie’s sleuths – Poirot – in After the Funeral.

Back to Home

Book challenges

Footer

Declaration of affiliate partnerships