Michael Bakewell

Agatha Christie

Hallowe'en Party (BBC Radio Collection)

Hallowe'en party: One of the very respectable guests at the festive Hallowe'en party must have committed murder--someone who had a nasty shock from Joyce's revelation.

Hallowe'en Party

Caroline Clutterbuck Kapulkin

"Compassion," said Poirot, "on my part would do nothing to help Leopold. He is beyond help. Justice, if we obtain justice, you and I, for I think you are of my way of thinking over this—justice, one could say, will also not help Leopold. But it might help some other Leopold, it might help to keep some other child alive, if we can reach justice soon enough.“

I love Poirot and his moustaches 😂💕

He would not have liked to be a beautiful young man himself, not that there had ever been the least chance of that. There was only one thing about his own appearance which really pleased Hercule Poirot, and that was the profusion of his moustaches, and the way they responded to grooming and treatment and trimming. They were magnificent. He knew of nobody else who had any moustache half as good. 

Ariadne Oliver is a fun character to include in this story; as a mystery writer maybe she’s like a self-insert character. She throws lots of jabs at Poirot for his unnecessary mystery and impractical shoe choices. 😆

“‘My mother said I never should play with the children in the wood,’" quoted Mrs. Oliver. "Well, good-bye. If you like to be mysterious, I suppose you will go on being mysterious. You don't even say what you're going to do next?"

No one believes a little girl when she insists that she has witnessed a murder until she herself turns up drowned, and Hercule Poirot sets out to catch the killer.

Not her best work but still a fairly good whodunnit mystery with a explanation being one that I definitely didn’t see coming.

Wingyan Chan

Halloween Party A Hercule Poirot Mystery

Unfortunately the most boring of her works that I have read which pains me because I love so many of her other books

Bailey Corblies

Bella Koch

A bit spookier and faster paced than most Poirots! It was fun and now I need to see the movie

First of further more, I haven’t read any Agatha Christie’s novels before. So basically this is my first book of hers. And I decided to read one together since one of my close friend asked for a reading date! Oh, a little bit information too, there is a movie adaptation for this book while I decided to read this, but I haven’t watched it any. 

It took about almost two weeks for me to finish it— which is a bit weird since the writing is on scale categories for young adult in my opinion, and the plot is quite predictable. There isn’t any exact proof or detective mystery I might find in many other mysteries books. As I saw from other reviews, it has lower ranking from other Agatha’s mystery books. Maybe my mind would change after trying to expand my gut to other of her novels!

However, I love how easy and overflowing the story is. Hallowe’en Party is like a mini pocket size you might bring everywhere and can read in the middle of your busy schedule. I got a bit slump while trying to finish it because the plot is so.. flat? If I might say that. But it has adventurous potential on after climax pages. 

“You didn’t say a young man was beautiful. If you did say it, you said it apologetically as though you were praising some quality that had been long dead.”

Her chapters are so much flat personal dialogue, but one forgets just how gothic in setting, if not in spirit, Christie can be. Would've made for a stunning adaptation had they stuck to it.

Paige LeBook

Aamna

John Moffatt

A Hercule Poirot Mystery (Mystery Masters)

I have grown up with Hercule Poirot (a far more popular figure in our household than Sherlock Holmes, for example) but it had been a while since I'd watch any of the adaptations or picked up a book. This was nice and fun (I mean, I had fun) and kept me entertained while I was labouring over a masterplan (the urban kind). I wish I could have immersed myself better but there is no one to blame but myself. I liked the twist in the solution.

Wynter

A much better Poirot story, very reminiscent of the early Christie. It could have happened in the 1920s for all I knew - definitely a much better setting for our brilliant sleuth. Hallowe'en Party is also pretty dark, revolving around the violent death of a child. Full of red herrings and clues this one was fun to figure out. Though I did guess the culprit rather early in the book, I had a hard time proving my suspicions. Christie sure had a few aces up her sleeve even at the end of her writing career. I can't believe there are only two more books left to this wonderful series.

The motive for murder is just so strange, I feel confused.

ella hardy 

Halloween Party

Vilandra

It took me some time to get into this one, and I felt like Poirot didn’t stick out as much as usual.

alyssa b

probably my least favorite christie book…. read this for halloween time but it was barely a halloween book, they were at a halloween party when the murder happens so there was no halloween vibes aside from that. i was going to dnf it halfway through and i wish i had, the end wasn’t shocking or thrilling and i feel like i wasted my time… do not recommend

And , Third Girl

Heather Harrington

Toyah Blackburn

Another classic murder mystery from the queen of murder mysteries. Poirot is my favourite Christie character, and this was a great October read.

Brian Walborn

You can't beat Agatha Christie for crafting the perfect mystery. I thoroughly enjoyed this one even if I did solve this one early on.

Rose Stanley

Slightly less delayed November Read Christie 2021 pick - a story set after WWII.

The basic plot of this is pretty good - I guessed one of the murderers but not the second - but it felt like there were a lot of plot threads that didn't really go anywhere (usually Christie is pretty good at tying up loose ends, however red herringy!).

Fun drinking game - drink every time someone gives some variation of a speech about 'the mentally disturbed' and how to deal with them.

Meredith Rose

Not my favorite Agatha Christie book, but still a decent read for the spooky season. It felt a little anticlimactic to me, but overall the story is good. 

My only frustration with this story is its repetitiveness in the first half. Until reaching the halfway point, the story is just one chapter after another of Poirot interviewing a different person who says the exact same thing as the last person. I started to suspect that the story was originally published as installments in a magazine rather than as a complete novel—and I was right, which I suppose could account for the repetition. 

Repetition aside, the thing that intrigues me most about this book is how Christie flirts with “madness” rather than “motive” as a reason for killing. She wrote this story much later in her career—in the late 60s—and her attempt to shift from a traditional to a more modern murder mystery is obvious. Though ultimately, she isn't able to fully embrace these modern themes and gives her killers traditional motives of money, power, and love as their reasons for killing.

As with other Christie books, I can’t ignore the fact that the language hasn’t aged well. Characters strongly disparaging foreigners and calling people “mentally retarded” doesn’t fit with our expectations in the 21st century, but alas, it was a much different time.

I will say, it was great to listen to Hallowe'en Party on audiobook. That was definitely a highlight of my experience with this story—and maybe now I'll even be able to properly pronounce "Poirot" after listening to it read a billion times!

Liv Rockwell

Compared to other similar mysteries read in the past, this book was mediocre. However, I am not against trying other more popular Agatha Christie novels.

my_bookalicious

I really enjoyed my reading, and for once I wasn't too last with all different characters. And I guessed the killer.

Анастасия Розова

I had plans to finish this before Halloween and I have succeeded!

This book has been sitting on my shelf for years and I never had any urges to pick it up. But this year it finally happened. As far as I know, this is not one of her more popular books, but the title intrigued me. 

Agatha Christie is known for her good and shocking reveals. Alas, I was not shocked. I guessed the murderers right at those moments Agatha wanted her readers to. But I still enjoyed this book quite a bit!

Poirot was charming as ever, walking in his uncomfortable shoes and trying to figure the murder of a little girl out. Clever man with clever guesses.

Victoria Grace

I was most disappointed that this book wasn't very Halloween centric as the title might lead one to believe. The most Halloween events that occur are within maybe the first 30 pages and then it's about the murder of a young girl, all tied together with other past events that have to do with a murder that was witnessed.

Personally I liked a lot of the ideas that Agatha Christie discusses with her characters. Everything from the beginnings of criminology to mentally unstable criminals is discussed in short spurts throughout the book. I have a fondness for the way she writes, but I am always turned away by the amount of dialogue that is present, as opposed to actions. My only other critique for this books is that, despite the clues in the book, the murderer wasn't very evident and when we discover who it is, it speeds by in a few pages.

Marisa Shibata

perfect october book!! as always, i didn’t see the twist coming and it was so unique too. i just felt the way the past and present were tied together in this felt a little unrealistic, for lack of a better word, so i couldn’t fully get with the storyline but brilliantly devised nevertheless. halloween party also single handedly knocked down a majority of the prompts for the october readathons im doing which is v convenient because my reading has slowed down a bit (owing to my, yet again, botched sleep schedule pls pls pls let me fix it by like tomorrow i hate waking up late 😭😭) ahem.. my grievances aside, loved the interactions between miss marple and poirot in this one. also the thing about apples is clearly a running joke so i wanna read whichever book it started in 🤣🍎

Anna Adams

Actually a re-read, and I like it even better this time. I've seen reviews that made me wonder if I'd missed something before, so I sort of had to talk myself into the read, even though this time of year makes me want to read fall/winter-set stories. Such a good story!

Hallowe'en Party (BBC Radio Collection)

Reviews

Highlights