Rating: 
Summary: Another entertaining book from Damm Christie
Review: Although this book is not as well know as other "must reads" by Agatha, I still consider it one of the finest one. As always, the story is full of suprises, the plot is complex, and characters are fully developed. If u are a fan of Agatha, I'm sure u will love it. If u are going to read Agatha for the first time though, I suggest u to try "And then there were none", "Murder of Roger Akroyd", and of course "Death on the Nile" and "Murder on Oriental Express."
Rating:
Summary: Another entertaining book from Damm Christie
Review: Although this book is not as well know as other "must reads" by Agatha, I still consider it one of the finest one. As always, the story is full of suprises, the plot is complex, and characters are fully developed. If u are a fan of Agatha, I'm sure u will love it. If u are going to read Agatha for the first time though, I suggest u to try "And then there were none", "Murder of Roger Akroyd", and of course "Death on the Nile" and "Murder on Oriental Express."
Rating: 
Summary: A bit too complex, maybe?
Review: Death comes to the town of Broadhinny. On November 22, Mrs. McGinthy, a widow of sixty-four who worked in various village houses as a daily domestic, is found murdered, knocked in the back of the head, in her cottage parlour. Her bedroom has been ransacked, the floorboards pried up. Police find her savings, thirty pounds' worth, hidden under a stone behind the house. Suspicion falls immediately on her boarder, the "sometimes cringing and sometimes truculent" James Bently. But Superintendent Spence is not sure James did it, so he calls his dearest friend Hercule Poirot to help.Mrs. McGinthy's Dead is a very complex story. Maybe a bit too complex to be good. The story evolves on a high pace, but in my opinion the outcome is one of the most disputable of Agatha's long and successful career. What seems to be a clear case at first, becomes a hodgepodge of intrigues and secrets. Finally, just a few pages before the end, a certain vital clue is discovered. Without this clue, it is truly impossible to find the murderer - unless your first name is Sherlock, of course. So "fairness" is not directly a word I would associate with this book. "It had not been an interesting murder," the Belgian sleuth things to himself at a certain point, but it gave me a nasty headache to find out what really happened. Next time I will read something lighter, I guess.
Rating:
Summary: A bit too complex, maybe¿
Review: Death comes to the town of Broadhinny. On November 22, Mrs. McGinthy, a widow of sixty-four who worked in various village houses as a daily domestic, is found murdered, knocked in the back of the head, in her cottage parlour. Her bedroom has been ransacked, the floorboards pried up. Police find her savings, thirty pounds' worth, hidden under a stone behind the house. Suspicion falls immediately on her boarder, the "sometimes cringing and sometimes truculent" James Bently. But Superintendent Spence is not sure James did it, so he calls his dearest friend Hercule Poirot to help. Mrs. McGinthy's Dead is a very complex story. Maybe a bit too complex to be good. The story evolves on a high pace, but in my opinion the outcome is one of the most disputable of Agatha's long and successful career. What seems to be a clear case at first, becomes a hodgepodge of intrigues and secrets. Finally, just a few pages before the end, a certain vital clue is discovered. Without this clue, it is truly impossible to find the murderer - unless your first name is Sherlock, of course. So "fairness" is not directly a word I would associate with this book. "It had not been an interesting murder," the Belgian sleuth things to himself at a certain point, but it gave me a nasty headache to find out what really happened. Next time I will read something lighter, I guess.
Rating:
Summary: M. Poirot has his dinner interrupted by an old friend
Review: Hercule Poirot has been enjoying his retirement. His main concern of each day is planning the menu for his next meal - it is a pity that one can only truly enjoy three meals a day! His old friend Inspector Spence asks him to look into a case for him. Mrs. McGinty, a charwoman in a small village was brutally murdered. Spence has already caught the murderer, (the woman's lodger) a jury has found him guilty and the date for the execution has been set. The only problem is that the good inspector has doubts. Poirot agrees to look into the matter and sets off for the village of Broadhinny, where the crime took place. He takes up residence in the only available lodging in town, a very disorganized bed and breakfast, suffering dreadfully from the terrible accomodations and worse meals and begins working on the case. While there Poirot mets an old friend, Ariadne Oliver, famous mystery novelist who was in Broadhinny working on a stage adaption of her work. In the end of course, Poirot solves the crime and sees that justice is served. The mystery here is a recurring theme of Christie's, an old crime that has resurfaced years later and requiring many old secrets to be revealed. The only problem with this particular novel is that it is quite complicated with many characters and their stories that tend to become a bit difficult to keep straight. On the plus side we are treated to yet another visit with Ariadne Oliver, always a delight. We are also introduced to the Summerhayes family, a wonderfully disorganized group that really diserve their own book.
Rating:
Summary: M. Poirot has his dinner interrupted by an old friend
Review: Hercule Poirot has been enjoying his retirement. His main concern of each day is planning the menu for his next meal - it is a pity that one can only truly enjoy three meals a day! His old friend Inspector Spence asks him to look into a case for him. Mrs. McGinty, a charwoman in a small village was brutally murdered. Spence has already caught the murderer, (the woman's lodger) a jury has found him guilty and the date for the execution has been set. The only problem is that the good inspector has doubts. Poirot agrees to look into the matter and sets off for the village of Broadhinny, where the crime took place. He takes up residence in the only available lodging in town, a very disorganized bed and breakfast, suffering dreadfully from the terrible accomodations and worse meals and begins working on the case. While there Poirot mets an old friend, Ariadne Oliver, famous mystery novelist who was in Broadhinny working on a stage adaption of her work. In the end of course, Poirot solves the crime and sees that justice is served. The mystery here is a recurring theme of Christie's, an old crime that has resurfaced years later and requiring many old secrets to be revealed. The only problem with this particular novel is that it is quite complicated with many characters and their stories that tend to become a bit difficult to keep straight. On the plus side we are treated to yet another visit with Ariadne Oliver, always a delight. We are also introduced to the Summerhayes family, a wonderfully disorganized group that really diserve their own book.
Rating: 
Summary: Magnificent mystery
Review: Hercule Poirot is bored, so he is delighted when he is visited by his old friend Superintendent Spence of the Kilchester Police. Spence has recently conducted an investigation into the murder of an old charwoman Mrs McGinty, in the village of Broadhinny. her lodger, James Bentley has been convicted of the murder and is due to hang, but Spence is convinced Bentley is innocent, and wants Poirot to investigate.
Poirot goes to stay in the village of Broadhinny, and soon begins to uncover reasons why other people might have wanted Mrs McGinty dead. While investigating the murder, he has to cope with staying at the dreadful guest house run by the Summerhayes, a couple who have no idea of how to keep house or cook an edible meal.
The scenes where the sufferings of Poirot at the guest house are described are among the most amusing in this very amusing book. There are many interesting characters, particularly the scatty but charming Maureen Summerhayes, whom Poirot likes in spite of her atrocious cooking. And there is the maddening James Bentley, the convicted murderer, whose unprepossesing character only makes Poirot more determined to prove him innocent.
One of the most amusing exchanges in the book occurs near the end: ' "Mon Dieu, how stupid I have been," said Hercule Poirot, "The whole thing is simple, is it not?" It was after that remark that there was very nearly another murder - the murder of Hercule Poirot by Superintendent Spence.' Enjoy it.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Christie's best
Review: Hmmm. I'm struggling to give Agatha Christie such a low rating. She wrote the kind of mysteries that you could sink your teeth into. Not quick reads, but very methodical with lots of character development. I don't always feel very motivated to get through some of those slow-moving chapters, but I always do it knowing that I will be rewarded with a great ending. Christie was great at spinning scenarios designed to shock the reader when the "who, where and why" were finally revealed in the end. I was shocked again at the end of this book - not because I didn't know who the killer was, but actually because I already knew who and how. I tried to convince myself for awhile that it had to be someone else because it was just too obvious. Very disappointing. Christie books I would recommend instead - ABC murders, And Then There Were None and Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good.
Review: It's a very good book, although I wouldn't say it's the best I've read. If you like Agatha you should read it.
Rating:
Summary: Review
Review: James Bentley was condemned to death for the murder of his landlady, elderly charwoman Mrs. McGinty (whose Christian name, by the way, we never learn), bludgeoned to death in her cottage at a time when Bentley claimed to be out walking'yet why was blood found on his coat-sleeve, and why was Mrs. McGinty's money found buried in the garden? Superintendent Spence, who arrested Bentley, does not feel that Bentley was guilty, and turns to Hercule Poirot for help. Poirot, aged and bored, jumps at Supt. Spence's request for help, and travels to the village of Broadhinny (one of Christie's few working-class backgrounds), going as himself, 'pretending that [he] know[s] a great deal ' [is] not satisfied about the verdict in the McGinty case ' [has] a very shrewd suspicion of what really happened [for] there is a circumstance that [he], alone, estimate[s] at its true value' And then, having made [his] effect, [he shall] observe the reactions. For there should be reactions.' Unfortunately, the most immediate reaction is that he is nearly pushed underneath a train'one of the few cases in Christie, outside of the execrable The Big Four, where Poirot himself is endangered. And to what avail? For Poirot, like the reader, has no sympathy for Bentley, 'a pathological case if ever there was one, a self-centred creature who had never thought much of anyone but himself. A man ungrateful for the efforts that were being made to save him'almost, one might say, uninterested in them.' Coupled with this unprepossessing suspect, Poirot also has to stay at an amusingly bad guesthouse, where he suffers 'the cooking of Mme. Summerhayes ' [which] is not cooking at all. And the draughts, the cold winds, the upset stomachs of the cats, the long hairs of the dogs, the broken legs of the chairs, the terrible, terrible bed in which [he] sleeps, the tepid water in the bathroom, the holes in the stair carpet, and the coffee'words cannot describe to you the fluid which they serve to you as coffee. It is an affront to the stomach.' Yet, despite the insult afforded him by Bentley and the horrible circumstances in which he finds himself, Poirot, working on the clue of a bottle of ink purchased by Mrs. McGinty two days before her murder in order to write a letter, is led to the conclusion that Mrs. McGinty was killed for recognising a photograph of one of four 'Women Victims of Bygone Tragedies''a blow to the desperate respectability of the middle-class inhabitants of Broadhinny, who 'are all very nice people' That has been, before now, a motive for murder.' The suspects (including the tiresomely invalid Mrs. Wetherby) and dialogue are entertaining and well observed'this is Christie at her liveliest. Among the best characters is Christie's self-parody, Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, in her first appearance since Cards on the Table 16 years before'used by her real-life counterpart to comment on the adaptation of her plays: 'So far it's pure agony. Why I ever let myself in for it I don't know. My books bring me in quite enough money'that is to say the blood-suckers take most of it, and if I made more, they'd take more, so I don't overstrain myself. But you've no idea of the agony of having your characters taken and made to say things that they never would have said, and do things that they never would have done. And if you protest, all they say is that it's 'good theatre'.' As well as being a thoroughly entertaining read (as most Christies except the late ones are), the management of suspicion is well done, and the book boasts one of Christie's best surprise!!! solutions, in which she plays such devilishly ingenious tricks with the reader's assumptions, relying on 'the ease with which [she] misled [the reader] without uttering an untrue word, his bafflement, his stupendous astonishment when he at last perceived the truth that had been clear to [Poirot] all along.' The solution is well-clued to boot, 'clues that mean everything to the detective'and nothing to you'until the end when you fairly kick yourself''and, as in the best of Christie (of which this is a prime example), he does. Congratulations to Mrs. Christie for constructing such a baffling and entertaining detective story.
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