Name: Hallowe'en Party (BBC Radio Collection)
Rating: 3.485185185185185 (135 reviews)
ISBN: 9780563381341

Michael Bakewell

Agatha Christie

Hallowe'en Party (BBC Radio Collection)

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. 😆

Caroline Clutterbuck Kapulkin

“‘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?"

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. 

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.

Hallowe'en Party

lala

Yes I read this so I get an idea of what to expect from Haunting in Venice. I guess… since I don’t really enjoy reading Agatha Christie’s novels… this one wasn’t remarkable for me as well. The character Ariadne Oliver was interesting to see because she was a detective novel writer and I thought it’s some kind of self-insert maybe??? The setting was interesting as well, on a Halloween Party where the victims were children. Maybe because I didn’t read a lot of Agatha Christie’s books it was funny to see that multiple books started with Poirot trying to retire. My mom likes Poirot, and although I generally don’t enjoy detective stories, it always baffled me how Poirot arrives at the conclusion. They say it’s in the dialogues and details but I never picked up on them so it always feel like it came out of nowhere??? Maybe it’s the old Indonesian translation because I enjoyed reading the ABC Murders or maybe the POV was different. It’s just not my cup of tea.

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

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.

Halloween Party A Hercule Poirot Mystery

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.

Heather Harrington

And , Third Girl

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.

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.

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.

Hallowe'en Party (BBC Radio Collection)

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