Review: HERCULE POIROT'S CHRISTMAS, Agatha Christie

• 
  This edition read on Kindle (Amazon)
  
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0046H95T0
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins; Masterpiece Ed edition (October 14, 2010)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 179 pages
• first published 1938,
• Hercule Poirot #20/38
  

Synopsis (Amazon)

It is Christmas Eve. The Lee family reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture, followed by a scream…

Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed.

But when Hercule Poirot, who is staying in the village with a friend for Christmas, offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man…

My Take

This is the first time I have read this novel in 14 years, and I am reading it this time for discussion with my U3A Agatha Christie Reading Group. My earlier review on this blog is here.

Hercule Poirot seems a little less bombastic in this novel. He agrees to go with a friend to the murder scene to offer his opinion, and then becomes involved in the investigation.

I've found another review that has provoked some thoughts

In my discussion with my group I want to focus on the following:

• the war referred to in the early part of the novel is the Spanish Civil War. Pila seems extraordinarily hardened by her war experiences.
  
• the ways in which Simeon Lee brought his murder on himself, although he could hardly have expected that to be the result; Did he deserve his fate?
  
• structure of the story: did you notice how the story was broken up into Part 1, Part 2 etc = each Part contains the action for a particular day.e.g. Part 1- December 22. It takes place over 7 days of a Christmas week.
  
• this story appears to be a "locked room mystery" - what does that mean?
• Why was there so much blood?
  
• There are none of the promised activities of a Christmas week. What preparations had been made? No tree? No presents? No Christmas dinner?
  
• there are 3 people who are not who they seem - who are they?
• after the first murder, there is an attempted murder. Why did the murderer try to do this?
• the idea that families getting together for Christmas often provokes violence, even death 
• what is the role of women in this novel?
• What gave the murderer away?
  

I've found another review that has provoked some thoughts

My rating: 4.5

See my Agatha Christie novels page.

Review: THE DEATH OF DORA BLACK, Lainie Anderson

• 
  This edition available as an e-book on Amazon
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CX9LRBCB
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hachette Australia (August 28, 2024)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 321 pages
• Petticoat Police Mystery #1
  

Synopsis (Amazon) 

Summer, Adelaide, 1917. The impeccably dressed Miss Kate Cocks might look more like a schoolmistress than a policewoman, but don't let that fool you. She's a household name, wrangling wayward husbands into repentance, seeing through deceptive clairvoyants, and rescuing young women (whether they like it or not) with the help of a five-foot cane and her sassy junior constable, Ethel Bromley.

When shop assistant Dora Black is found dead on a city beach, Miss Cocks and Ethel are ordered to stay out of the investigation and leave it to the men. But when Dora's workmate goes missing soon after, the women suspect something sinister, and determine to take matters into their own hands. After all, who knows Adelaide better than the indomitable Miss Cocks?

*In 1915, Fanny Kate Boadicea Cocks became the first policewoman in the British Empire employed on the same salary as men. This novel is a rich exploration of that little-known chapter of Australian history.*

My Take

From all accounts Kate Cocks was a remarkable woman. This book, fictionalised history set in Adelaide mid way through World War 1, brings her to life and gives readers a chance to appreciate her achievements. If you live in Adelaide there are landmarks you will recognise, and some that have disappeared from our landscape.

The novel is essentially a police procedural, very readable, with credible scenarios. 

The real Kate Cocks.

My rating: 4.4

About the Author
In early 2024 I completed a PhD with the University of South Australia, exploring the life of South Australia's Kate Cocks. In 1915 she became the first policewoman in the British Empire employed on the same salary and with the same powers of arrest as men. Here's a piece I wrote about her legacy for The Conversation.  As part of my PhD I have also written a historical murder mystery inspired by Kate's extraordinary life and some of the cracking cases she solved. The Death of Dora Black will be released by Hachette Australia in August 2024.

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Review: THE SEARCH PARTY, Hannah Richell

• 
  this edition provided as an e-book on Libby by my local library
  
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia (January 3, 2024)
• Length: 400 pages
• ISBN13: 9781761421730
• Shortlisted for the 2024 Ned Kelly Awards, Best International Crime Fiction

Synopsis (publisher)

Join six old friends for one wild weekend at Cornwall’s newest glamping spot.

The guests:

• The anxious hosts with everything at stake.
• The boho hippies concealing a private darkness.
• The TV celebrity with his hot new wife and an even hotter temper.
• The exhausted new parents with a secret to hide.
• The one that won’t make it home alive . . .

The tents are up. The bonfire is lit. Get ready for one hell of a party. 

My Take

The author helpfully provided a list of the four families and their members  right at the beginning of the book. I used it more than once.

The Prologue tells us something out of the ordinary, maybe catastrophic, has happened. We then launch into the story proper on Sunday afternoon with one of the characters, Dom, sitting waiting to be interviewed by the police. From then on we piece together the story of what has happened since Friday afternoon when the 3 families arrived at a glamping spot about to be put on the market by their friends who own it. In each chapter a character narrates to the police the events from their point of view. Our job as the reader is to put the jigsaw together.

Bit by bit everything comes together and we can decide for ourselves what sort of crime has been committed. There are plenty of red herrings too.

The structure works very well. Highly recommended.

This would make an excellent discussion book.

My rating: 5.0

About the author

Hannah Richell was born in Kent, United Kingdom, and spent her childhood years in Buckinghamshire and Canada. After graduating from the University of Nottingham, she worked in the book publishing and film industries in both London and Sydney. She is a dual citizen of Great Britain and Australia, and currently lives in the southwest of England with her family. She is the author of several international bestsellers, such as The Search Party and One Dark Night. Her work has been translated into twenty-one languages. Find out more at HannahRichell.com. 

Review: IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE, Jo Callaghan

• 
  This edition available as an e-book on Kindle through Amazon
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09YFTR7M8
  
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster UK (January 19, 2023)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 415 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1398511161
• Winner of the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year and the CWA New Blood Dagger

Synopsis (Amazon)

In the UK, someone is reported missing every 90 seconds.
Just gone. Vanished. In the blink of an eye.

DCS Kat Frank knows all about loss. A widowed single mother, Kat is a cop who trusts her instincts. Picked to lead a pilot programme that has her paired with AIDE (Artificially Intelligent Detective Entity) Lock, Kat's instincts come up against Lock's logic. But when the two missing person's cold cases they are reviewing suddenly become active, Lock is the only one who can help Kat when the case gets personal.

AI versus human experience.
Logic versus instinct.
With lives on the line can the pair work together before someone else becomes another statistic?

In the Blink of an Eye is a dazzling debut from an exciting new voice and asks us what we think it means to be human. 

My Take:

I have just finished reading this book, and my mind is full of superlatives.

AI is in the process of penetrating our world and not every instance of it is bad. In fact we have been using AI for some time to process and interpret raw data in many beneficial ways. And clearly it can take over many tasks that currently take humans far too long. We just need to learn to trust the results.

So in a sense this novel is about how AI might be useful in crime detection and prevention, in how it might help resolve criminal activity more quickly, or even at all.

And in many ways AI is still in its infancy with many lessons to learn.

This book will give you a lot to think about. Highly recommended.

My rating: 4.8

About the Author
Jo Callaghan works full time as a senior strategist, carrying out research into the future impact of AI and genomics on the workforce. She was a student of the Writers’ Academy Course at Penguin Random House, and was longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Writing Competition and Bath Novel Competition. After losing her husband to cancer in 2019 when she was just forty-nine, Callaghan started writing In the Blink of an Eye, her debut crime novel, which explores learning to live with loss and what it means to be human. Jo Callaghan lives with her two children in the British Midlands.

Review: IT TAKES A TOWN, Aoife Clifford

• 
  This edition made available as an e-book on Libby by my local library
  
• Published Ultimo Press 
• ISBN 9781761152733
• Pub Date: April 2024
• Extent: 352pp

Synopsis (publisher)

So many people had reason to hate her, but did anyone have reason to kill her?
 
Everyone dies famous in a country town, but glamorous Vanessa Walton was a shining star. A celebrity since a television commercial when she was a child, Vanessa is back on the front page for all the wrong reasons; after a terrible storm she has been found dead at the bottom of her stairs.
 
At first her death seems to be a simple accident, but anonymous letters are discovered that suggest otherwise – and when 16-year-old Jasmine Landridge claims it is murder, she suddenly disappears. As the police begin to investigate, secrets are exposed and friendships unravel.
 
What happens to a community when murders and abductions sit alongside petty workmates, teenage tribulations and longstanding friendships? It will take a town to solve this crime, but what will be broken in the effort to piece together the truth? 

My Take

The attendance at her funeral is huge for a small town and the word on everybody's lips is "murder". But the local police, in the first case for the new station head, and the local coroner, both pronounce that it was an accident. The woman who brought fame to the town was hated by many. But she was adored by many, and there are those who think the investigation into her death has not been thorough enough.

Secrets come to light, and relationships are tested. A wonderful array of believable characters. An excellent read.

My rating: 4.6

About the Author
Aoife Clifford is the author of All These Perfect Strangers, which was long-listed for both the Australian Industry General Fiction Book of the Year and the Voss Literary Prize, and Second Sight, a Publishers Weekly (starred review) and PW Pick for Book of the Week. Aoife’s short stories have been published in Australia, United Kingdom and the United States, winning premier prizes such as the Scarlet Stiletto and the S.D. Harvey Ned Kelly Award.

Review: THE CARDIFF KILLINGS, Gaynor Torrance

• 
  This edition available from Amazon on Kindle
  
• THE CARDIFF KILLINGS a gripping murder mystery (DI Jemima Huxley Crime Thriller Book 1)
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09W33D4BJ
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Joffe Books crime thriller, mystery and suspense (March 20, 2022)
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 279 pages

Synopsis (Amazon)

MEET DETECTIVE INSPECTOR JEMIMA HUXLEY IN THIS BRILLIANT NEW CRIME SERIES FULL OF STUNNING TWISTS.

Please note this book was previously published as REVENGE.

An isolated manor house. Shallow woodland graves. A troubled female detective facing the biggest case of her career.

The call comes early in the morning. David and Helen Tremaine have discovered a body buried in the grounds of their large Victorian manor house, Llys Faen Hall, just north of Cardiff.

DI Jemima Huxley and her partner, DS Dan Broadbent, race to the scene to discover that a second body has been unearthed in a shallow woodland grave. And the forensic team working the site believe this is just the start.

Jemima knows this is the biggest case of her career. But it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Struggling to get pregnant, she is a woman on the edge, a woman who self-harms just to make it through the day. And with no one reported missing, no apparent motive and no obvious suspect, the investigation is anything but straightforward.

Eight graves. Eight dead women. All with pomegranate seeds placed inside their mouths.

When Jemima makes an unexpected breakthrough, she enters a desperate race against time to prevent more women dying.

Readers of Simon McCleave, Rachel McLean, Ann Cleeves, Helen H. Durrant, Joy Ellis, Angela Marsons, L.J. Ross, J.M. Dalgliesh, Mark Edwards and Lynda La Plante will love Gaynor Torrance’s feisty and flawed protagonist DI Jemima Huxley.

My Take

This is the fairly grisly beginning to a new-to-me series set in Wales. Basically a police procedural about a serial killer. There are some not-so-new elements such as a new female detective inspector charged with setting up a new murder team, hounded by her boss, and also feeling the pressures of being unable to become pregnant.  Jemima Huxley also self harms.  

A body is found in a shallow grave on a wealthy estate. Investigators quickly realise there is more than one body, all killed in a similar way, seemingly with some ritual significance.

I will read another.

My rating: 4.6

About the author

Gaynor Torrance lives near Cardiff with her husband and their rescue cat, Cleo. The area is the setting for her Detective Inspector Jemima Huxley Crime Thriller series of books. Like Gaynor, Jemima has a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Though, apart from them both having a keen interest in human behaviour, that’s where any similarity ends.

When she’s not writing or glued to her Kindle, Gaynor enjoys listening to music, playing the piano, walking, travelling, and eating far too much chocolate.

Find out more about Gaynor at: https://www.gaynortorrance.com  

DETECTIVE INSPECTOR JEMIMA HUXLEY
Book 1: THE CARDIFF KILLINGS
Book 2: THE BRIARMARSH CLOSE KILLINGS
Book 3: THE CAERPHILLY MOUNTAIN KILLINGS
Book 4: THE LEIGHTON MEADOW KILLINGS
Book 5: THE MARQUESS CLUB KILLINGS

Review: ONE DARK, TWO LIGHT, Ruth Mancini

• 
  this edition provided by my local library
  
• published by Head of Zeus 2020
• ISBN 9-78188-543354
• 376 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

New Year's Eve, London. Outside the Hope & Glory pub, a man has been left to die. A victim of extraordinary violence, he will never walk or speak again. He remains in hospital, nameless, until criminal defence lawyer Sarah Kellerman walks onto his ward.

Sarah barely recognises the man she once worked with – he was honourable and kind – what was he involved in? Who wanted him dead? But in her race to uncover the truth, Sarah comes to realise there are two men in her life that she never really knew at all...

From one of crime fiction's most compelling voices, One Dark, Two Light sees the personal and criminal collide, as Sarah reaches into the darkest corners to bring secrets into the light.  

My Take

The man Sarah Kellerman recognises in a London hospital has apparently lain there unidentified for about three months. But when Sarah investigates how the police have not identified him earlier, nor seemingly have not written a report on what happened to him, it seems the story does not ring true. And then when her 15 year old client is charged with running him over in a car, she realises she can't leave this alone.

A good read.

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

4.5, THE WOMAN ON THE LEDGE