Reviews
** spoiler alert ** I'm giving it 3.5 on the re-read. Not so much AC's usual puzzle mystery but a thriller/adventure story. I enjoyed the alternating POV's between two different characters. A little foreshadowing - think Roger Ackroyd.
Not a whodunit, but a fun little adventure book about a woman who feels her life is seriously lacking in it. I enjoy the characters and their humor, but I'm not a fan of the romance lol
I'm not satisfied with how it went. Seemed rather thrown together and not well plotted at all. I'll stick to Hercule Poirot from now on.
It was a little too much of everything. Too many locations, identities, and coincidences. I don't think we needed the drama of being unconscious for a month and the island. Big four was like this but better. Also two parallel narrations somehow did not work out. I would want to say that this Agatha Christie's experiment with her writing and it is good she took the risk even after being the bestseller author then and ever.
Mein erster Agatha Christie, aber sicher nicht der letzte!
I enjoyed this one quite a bit, actually. Except for not really buying into the romance, I thought it was quite fun. 4 stars, solidly. If you're looking for a fun Agatha Christie story that isn't part of a series, you should definitely give this one a read! Anne Beddingfield is a fun protagonist and finds herself in a hurry after she no longer has her father to look after. When she accidentally witnesses a man die by stepping on a live train track, she tries to reason out what scared him into stepping onto it. This, of course, leads her on a grand adventure where she throws reason to the winds and travels to South Africa chasing spies, murderers, and stolen diamonds. She proceeds to laugh in the face of danger, take in the sights that South Africa and the boat ride there have to offer, and make a whole bunch of new friends - one of which has money, which is fortunate since she spends her last to buy her way on board the ship to follow the murderer. She's a lot of fun as a main character. She desperately dislikes being treated as a weak, simple woman, and has a sense of humor that's pretty delightful. The side characters are great. My favorites were actually Anne and Sir Eustace, who spends half the book making life hard for his workaholic secretary Pagett. Like I mentioned, I didn't particularly care for the romance arc in it. The guy seemed more than a little unstable and bipolar. He didn't seem ready for a stable relationship, but hey, their life and choices I guess. I loved the little bit about her great-aunt Jane. Whether or not she's meant to be the relative of Ms. Marple is only a possible implication, but I definitely like the implication.
Read this as the July choice(a story with a character based on someone Christie knew) for Read Christie 2020 https://www.agathachristie.com/news/2... Not my favourite Christie TBH. I think this is partly because it's more of an adventure novel than a murder mystery, and partly because of the internalised misogyny/casual racism of one of the (potentially) unreliable narrators (the idea of dual narrators is however a point in the book's favour). PS: Colonel Race doesn't deserve this kind of treatment. I'm glad he gets to be in other stories.
** spoiler alert ** I love Agatha Christie, and I love her books. But I definitely prefer her mysteries compared to her espionage books. I just love the analysis of the murder, the investigation, the questioning everyone. Here we don't have that, as the story is much different. I still liked most of it. The beginning is very interesting, with Anne trying to decide what to do and bumping into the first dead. I think the travel on the boat was my favourite, as we got to know the characters and understood the mechanisms among them. I also liked the South African setting, with the travelling and visiting new places. I still prefer the small English countryside village, but this was a lovely change. The mystery was good and filled with twists. I did not expect it to be Pedler until almost the end, and I was pleasantly surprised. I also liked Colonel Race, he may not be Poirot or Miss Marple, but I enjoyed reading of him, even though there was not enough of him on the scene. The thing I really didn't like was the romance. Agatha seems to really enjoy putting some romance into all her books, but I often wish it was not the case, as for the most I really don't care about them. I mean, when I read a murder mystery, I don't really want to read about unlikely romace. And in this book, I found the romance a bit too insta-lovey, and coming out of nowhere. I don't care about the male interest much and I don't see what she sees in him. And the ending is a bit too absurd and cheesy to me, I think no romance at all would have made this book way better. This was overall good, not one of her best for sure but I had a good time reading it.
This was so much fun! I loved all the characters and couldn't stop reading, this is such a great one that is more 'adventure' and less 'mystery' Up there with all my underrated faves (There is still mystery of course)
Haven't read a lot of Agatha Christie's stand-alone. Enjoyed this one! I liked the heroine, despite some shocking instalove. Loved the introduction of Col. Race. Not a lot to say, because AC is pretty much always 5-star for me!
