The Clocks

Rating:
Summary: Christie is Always Solid
Review: Agatha Christie's novels are always written in a straight-forward manner and have plots that are thoughtful and plausible. This one is no different in those positive attributes.

What is different is the book is written in two voices. One a third person narrative and the other the narrative in the first person of Colin Lamb, one of the investigators of the murder.

The book also has two story-lines/mysteries, which takes Mr. lamb in and out of both.

As is so frequently the case with Agatha Christie, the murder is set up well. A typist is requested by a blind woman who gives instructions to enter the house if she is not yet home. When the typist enters the house she finds the body. Of course, the blind woman never called her to type, the man was not identifiable and the inspector and Lamb are off on the hunt. Lamb brings in Peroit, who does not take much space in the book, but, of course, solves the crime from his armchair.

As usual, a thoroughly enjoyable novel by Christie who never writes the same story twice and always, as here, seems to have an added twistl.

Rating:
Summary: Really good until the end
Review: First of all, the set up to this story is excellent: the dead man in the blind woman's house, the mysterious phone call luring the stenographer there under false pretenses and the use of the clocks of the title to throw the police and the reader off the track. But then Christie gets over complicated and tries to wrap things up too quickly and the story concludes on a confusing note. The characters however are all unique especially the ones in the neighborhood where the dead body was found but they're mostly there to distract you away from the real killer, whose motives seem overly complex.
Poirot is regulated to background status here but as usual, he provides the most humor and enjoyment. Read for him and the supporting cast. The outcome sadly never reaches the same level as the great beginning.

Rating:
Summary: A title for your review
Review: Hey, i thought the book The Clocks was a pretty good book. I did figure out who the murderer was although i didn't know the motive, about half way through. Despite that i think it was very well written and i intend to read many more books by agatha christie. I think that Hercule Poirot is quite annoying but besides that Detective Inspector Hardcastle and collin lamb were very well developed characters. The ending did seem a bit crammed and all but at least it wasn't totally spread out so you'd miss some of the details. I liked the way that everytime it began to get boring something interesting would happen in the plot and spice it up again. over all this book was exciting etc.

Rating:
Summary: The Clocks
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I would recomend this book to other readers. I found this book to be suspensefull and full of suprises. The book gives you clues on who the killer is. You use those clues to figure it out, and then you find out that your wrong. Finding out that I am wrong drives me insane sometimes, but that is what makes the book good. I would not mind if I had to read more Agatha Christie books, I think I would enjoy those just as much as I did this one. I could not help liking this book, and I think those who do not like to read would enjoy this book too. It was fantastic and had so many details so you could understand everthing that is going on. This is also part of the reason I like this book. I can say that I will read more of these books and I encourage everyone else to too.

Rating:
Summary: The Clocks
Review: The Clocks (1963) is late and average Agatha Christie, a rather mundane plot set in a rather mundane setting. The setting is suburbia-Christie's exploration of changing times and social mores, but much better done than Third Girl. Wilbraham Crescent, "a fantasy executed by a Victorian builder in the 1880's", is "a half-moon of double houses and gardens set back to back" in which "the houses were neat, prim, artistically balanced and eminently respectable". Into the middle of this respectability is placed a dead body: a man, stabbed to death, the body discovered in a room filled with strange clocks in a house belonging to a blind woman. "It seemed wildly unlikely that a man should be found murdered in her neat, austere house-but the unlikely happened more often than one would be disposed to believe," reflects Detective Inspector Hardcastle. However, the solution to this agreeable touch of fantasy is a great disappointment: a red herring with no relation to the plot other than to make things difficult. The plot itself is mundane, although well-plotted, and with an excellent clue in the shape of a stiletto heel. The characterisation is indifferent to poor, no character standing out, and the murderers' identities are not particularly interesting. Detection is done mainly by police procedure, a bored Poirot acting as an armchair detective, reading detective stories (including John Dickson Carr and Freeman Wills Crofts, the latter under a pseudonym), and doing little else-the story is seen through the eyes of the disillusioned spy Colin Lamb, son of Poirot's old friend Superintendent Battle, a Carrian hero who falls in love with a girl who may be a murderess (...). This then is a rather indifferent Christie, not bad, but not particularly good either.

Rating:
Summary: Trust No Clue (hehe)
Review: The first time I read this novel, I had to reread it again. Why? So many questions still linger at the end of the story even though the pages has ended. I wondered and reread and after the third reading, I finally got it all.

The Clocks is a story that has two main plots, and the one has absolutely nothing to do with the other. But they were connected in a way when a young typist finds a dead body in a livingroom of a blind woman. From there it's red herring all the way. But bits of real clues emerge when Mr Lamb (a fake name) talks to a girl with a broken leg.

Poirot only comes in now and then but became more interested when another murder occurs, while Lamb becomes Poirot's legs, ears and eyes. Oh yes, there are clues aplenty, but a broken high heel has never been this important as a clue.

Christie delivers this story with delightful take that neither too wordy nor too lengthy. This is another often neglected classic Christie, so get it.

Rating:
Summary: Poirot again is called out of retirement
Review: This 1963 mystery begins with a young woman going out on an assignment from a secretarial service and finding a dead body instead of a client waiting to dictate a letter. Understandably upset, she runs out into the street screaming. There she meets a young man, Colin Lamb, who tries to help her. Mr. Lamb (not his real name) is the son of Sgt. Battle and may not be the innocent marine biologist that he claims to be. In fact there may be many things in that neighborhood that are not just as they appear to be. Colin investigates on his own for a while but ultimately turns to Hercule Poirot for help.

The story is well plotted. Some aspects might confuse a 21st century reader, like the scarcity of home telephones in English houses 50 years ago, the tensions that existed between Russia and the rest of Europe and the difficulities of identifying a dead body during that time. Even with this problems the story is very well written and still quite enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: PRETTY GOOD
Review: this is the first agatha christie book i have read and i liked it alot.It was boring at times also it was very confusing but the ending was so good and the book was pretty good. I hope to read more agatha christie

Rating:
Summary: Murder Most Timely
Review: We learn that Hercule Poirot has taken up the study of classic mysteries and his knowledge of these leads him to solve the mystery in this particular case.

Colin Lamb, a young marine biologist and Intelligence agent, is paying a visit to Wilbraham Crescent when a young girl comes running out of one of the homes. She is screaming that she has found a dead man inside. Indeed, a corpse is there surrounded by a room filled with clocks set to 4:13, although it is only 3:13. Colin takes the problem to his father's old friend, Hercule Poirot, who at once pronounces it a "simple" case. Two more murders, an unidentifiable body, a mysterious secretarial school, and the search for a clever spy are the clues that Poirot's little grey cells must sift through before he reveals the answer to this "simple" case.