Tag: Agatha Christie

Book recommendation/review: Endless Night by Agatha Christie

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, books and reading7 Comments

The book suggestion for this months’ read for the 2026 Agatha Christie Reading Challenge was Endless Night, a book that Agatha called one of her favorites. It is not a strict “who-done-it” with one of her detectives. Instead, it is a standalone novel that I would call a psychological mystery.

This book was written in about six weeks in 1968 when Agatha was in her 70s.

I’m going to be honest that I was a bit bored in the first part of this book but I just had this feeling that the ending was going to make it all worth it and I was definitely right.

There are some of Agatha’s books where I know that pushing through the more mundane parts of the book will pay off. I felt that way at times in The Secret of Chimneys and By The Pricking of My Thumbs but the endings saved both of those books for me.

This was another one of Agatha’s books where I guessed who was guilty but I didn’t know why they did it or how. I should have figured part of this one sooner than I did but the result would have been the same because the shock for me was more of how Agatha wrote about the villain’s descent into madness than the fact the person was guilty.

Then there was the ending, the final line, where Agatha blurred reality for the guilty party but also for us as the readers. “In the end was my beginning.”

That line made me think about so many of the parts of the book, replaying in my mind where I missed vital clues or thought something  might be a clue, but wasn’t yet sure.

This one was a bit of a mind twist of trying to figure out who was bad, who was good, who was a friend, who was an enemy and who was a lover or who was a killer.

It took a long time for someone to die in this book  — more than halfway through — which to me made the book both boring, at first, and then later, suspenseful. I was constantly wondering who was going to die and when, sometimes wishing she’d hurry up already, but feeling that someone definitely would. The person who did die wasn’t who I expected.

There was superstitious moments throughout the book where I was left wondering if supernatural things were really happening or if someone wanted it to look that way.

It’s hard to talk about the book in depth without spoiling the ending, something I never do in my reviews without a warning, so for now I’ll leave you with a quick description from online and then some quotes from the book.

Online description:

Gipsy’s Acre was a truly beautiful upland site with views out to sea – and in Michael Rogers it stirred a child-like fantasy. There, amongst the dark fir trees, he planned to build a house, find a girl and live happily ever after. Yet, as he left the village, a shadow of menace hung over the land. For this was the place where accidents happened. Perhaps Michael should have heeded the locals’ warnings: ‘There’s no luck for them as meddles with Gipsy’s Acre.’ Michael Rogers is a man who is about to learn the true meaning of the old saying ‘In my end is my beginning.’

The title Endless Night was taken from William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence and describes Christie’s favourite theme in the novel: a “twisted” character, who always chooses evil over good.

Christie finished Endless Night in six weeks, as opposed to the three-four months that most of her other novels took. Despite being in her seventies while writing it, she told an interviewer that being Michael, the twenty-something narrator, “wasn’t difficult. After all, you hear people like him talking all the time.”

The book is dedicated to Christie’s relative “Nora Prichard from whom I first heard the legend of Gipsy’s Acre.” Gipsy’s Acre was a field on the Welsh moors.

Quotes that caught my eye:

“Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night.”
*

“Born poor doesn’t mean you’ve got to stay poor. Money’s queer. It goes where it’s wanted.”

*

“The house only isn’t enough, you see. It has to have
the setting. That’s just as important. It’s like a ruby or an emerald. A beautiful stone is only a beautiful stone. It doesn’t lead you anywhere further. It doesn’t mean anything, it has no form or significance until it has its setting. And the setting has to have a beautiful jewel to be worthy of it. I take the setting, you see, out of the landscape, where it exists only in its own right. It has no meaning until there is my house sitting proudly like a jewel within its grasp.”

*

“Arrangements. I remember his using the word arrangements. What a hateful word it is and all the things it stands for. The things in life that have grand words – Love – sex – life – death – hate – those aren’t the things that govern existence at all. It’s lots of other pettifogging, degrading things. Things you have to endure, things you never think about until they happen to you.

*

In my end is my beginning … That’s a quotation I’ve often heard people say. It sounds all right—but what does it really mean?”

Have you read this one?

Book recommendation: By the Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, books and reading3 Comments

By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie was a nail-biter with some fun humor and banter mixed in between a husband and wife sleuthing team.

This was my first time reading a Tommy and Tuppence book by Christie and wow, what an introduction. I am glad I started with this one, even though the husband and wife team are now older than they were in the first books.

There are five books in the series: The Secret Adversary (1922), Partners in Crime (1929), N or M? (1941), By The Pricking of My Thumbs (1968), and a collection of short stories Postern of Fate (1978).

Before I start talking about the book, I will share a description from the official Agatha Christie site.

Although now considered ‘old’ by fellow society, this novel opens with the couple considering the sad fate of Tommy’s elderly Aunt Ada… now residing in an equipped facility named Sunny Ridge. Neither Beresford is particularly looking forward to the trip, but duty bound, they arrive to find Ada in a disagreeable mood. Banished to the communal lounge, Tuppence meets a troubled Mrs Lancaster with a secret to tell. Just weeks later, Tommy’s aunt has died, and a mysterious pronouncement is still troubling Tuppence…

I truly loved both Tuppence and Tommy and their hilarious butler Arthur. They are such fun characters. I just had to laugh at times because after all their years of espionage, both Tommy and Tuppence seemed very laid back about situations that were clearly going to become dangerous.

Maybe it is because they are upper-class British or just British in genera. I’m kidding, of course. It’s just how their characters are written and I love it.

It’s very clear that Tuppence and Tommy love each other and since I didn’t look up this book before I read it or know the history of the series, I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen to Tuppence at one point.

What I really liked about this book was how we were taken on a journey with just Tuppence for most of the book while she tried to get to the bottom of whether or not any crime had really taken place.

I enjoyed learning about Tuppence and her tenacity because if I had been her, I would have stopped searching for answers long before she did.

I’ve read some reviews that this book was slow or had too many “boring and mundane” conversations, and while I can see that in some places, I also thought it added some charm  to the book to have some everyday conversations.

When I read reviews that the plot was complicated I think….well, yeah, it’s a mystery and a Christie so it will be but I can also understand the complaint some. Complication and even some plot holes can be normal in her books, but, to me, the storytelling overall is still brilliant.

Personally, I enjoyed this book, even the parts that were more easy going or dragged just a bit. It was all worth it to read one of the creepier endings I have read in a Christie book.

If I was going to have one criticism, though, it would be the weird thing Agatha did through part of the book when she kept switching between the titles Mrs. Beresford and Tuppence or Mr. Beresford and Tommy. I needed her to pick one title for her main characters and then leave it.

The humor was well placed in this book. When Tommy and Tuppence go to visit Tommy’s aunt, that aunt decides she doesn’t like Tuppence.

“I seem to have a bad effect on her, don’t I?” said Tuppence. “Rather cheering in a way.”

“Why cheering?”

“Well, at my age,” said Tuppence. “and what with my neat and respectable and slightly boring appearance, it’s nice to think that you might be taken for a depraved woman of fatal sexual charm.”

“Idiot,” said Tommy, pinching her arm affectionately. “Who were you hobnobbing with? She looked a very nice fluffy old lady.”

“She was very nice,” said Tuppence. “A dear old think, I think. But unfortunately bats.”

The nursing home staff apologizes to Tuppence for the aunt’s rudeness.

“Well, it’s been very kind of you to come, I’m sure,” said Miss Packard. Turning to Tommy, she said, “And I know Miss Fanshawe has enjoyed your visit very much. I’m sorry she was rude to your wife.”

“I think that gave her a lot of pleasure too,” said Tuppence.

“Yes, you’re quite right. She does like being rude to people. She’s  unfortunately rather good at it.”

A couple of other quotes I enjoyed:

“I hate mourning,” she said. “It always smells of moth balls because it’s been laid up somewhere.”

 “You don’t need to go on wearing mourning. It’s only to go to the funeral in,” said Tommy.

“Oh no, I know that. In a minute or two I’m going to go up and put on a scarlet jersey just to cheer things up. You can make me another White Lady.”

“Really, Tuppence, I had no idea that funerals would bring out this party feeling.

***

“You don’t stop being in love with anyone because you get old. People like Derek and Deborah think you do. They can’t imagine anyone who isn’t young being in love.”

***

“They were in the time of life when they thought of themselves as old. And they had no idea that they and many others were automatically pronounced deadly dull solely on that account. Only by the young of course, but then, they would have thought indulgently, young people knew nothing about life. Poor dears, they were always worrying about examinations, or their sex life, or buying some extraordinary clothes, or doing extraordinary things to their hair to make them more noticeable. Mr. and Mrs. Beresford from their own point of view were just past the prime of life. They liked themselves and liked each other and day succeeded day in a quiet but enjoyable fashion.”

Have you read this one? What did you think of it?

_____

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Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

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Book recommendation: Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading5 Comments

Sad Cypress was my read for July for the Christie Reading Challenge for 2026 after I ended up not finishing The Rose and the Yew Tree by Mary Westmacott, which was Agatha’s pseudonym.

I’m glad I switched because I got into Sad Cypress much faster than The Rose and the Yew Tree.

I’m more of a mystery fan than a romantic suspense fan, apparently. Plus, The Rose and the Yew Tree was terribly depressing and slow.

I do think I will go back at some point and try to finish it, however, because it did pique my interest. Just not as much as Sad Cypress.

I did not know that Sad Cypress was a Poirot book when I started it. It is, in fact, the 21st Poirot book.

This one involves jealousy, two murders, and is split into three parts, with the first part from  the main character, Elinor Carlisle’s, point of view, the second focused on Poirot’s investigation, and the third back to Elinor again. Usually we get the point of view of the investigators, sometimes a mixed view of the investigators and the accused, but not usually a mix like this one.

Here is a quick description from Goodreads:

An elderly stroke victim dies without having arranged a will…

Beautiful young Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was damning: only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity and the means to administer the fatal poison.

Yet, inside the hostile courtroom, only one man still presumed Elinor was innocent until proven guilty; Hercule Poirot was all that stood between Elinor and the gallows.

I also liked this description/short excerpt from Storygraph:

“Elinor flushed: “Will you ask me – again – did I kill Mary Gerrard”?
Poirot rose to his feet. He said quickly, “I shall ask you – nothing. There are things I do not want to know”
But even Hercule Poirot sometimes deceived himself. He did want to know – badly.”

 Poirot is talked into taking on the case by the doctor, Peter Lord, who took care of Elinor’s aunt, the elderly stroke victim. This is a bit of a spoiler, but Peter has a wee crush on Elinor.

I liked how this one was set up with no Poirot at first.  This allowed us to get to know the characters better before the mystery unfolded and he started asking his questions.

No matter what Poirot does in this case, at least to start with, all evidence seems to point to the person already being pinpointed as the guilty person. He wants to help Peter Lord, who has fallen in love with Elinor, but he has to admit that things don’t look good for her.

She herself has given up, sitting in jail, thinking about how the odds are stacked against her, and dreading the court proceedings. There are chapters that include some court drama and it was interesting to see it from the point of view of the accused.

What is great is that Christie showed us Elinor’s point of view but never made it clear, even as we knew her thoughts, whether she was guilty or not, until the end. You’ll have to read this one to find out if she was truly guilty or not.

There were some pretty cool lines in this one, including: 

“You must be an incredibly simple man. Don’t you realize how easy it is for me to lie to you?”

Hercule Poirot said placidly:

“It does not matter.”

She was puzzled. “Not matter?”

“No, for lies, Mademoiselle, tell a listener just as much as truth can. Sometimes they tell more.”

***

”Yes, now it is necessary. Because now I know exactly what I’m looking for. One must understand with the cells of one’s brain before one uses one’s eyes.

****

Eleanor Carlisle said with a touch of weariness, “He has a great reputation.”

“Yes, for defending criminals. I have a great reputation for demonstrating innocence.”

****

At 21, Mary Gerrard was a lovely creature with a kind of wild-rose unreality about her; a long, delicate neck, pale, golden hair, lying close to her exquisitely shaped head and soft, natural waves and eyes a deep, vivid blue.

Have you read this one yet? What did you think?

Ten mysteries I hope to read this summer

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, top-ten-tuesday15 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

If you are new to my blog, I just wanted to share with you that I co-host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea (no, you don’t have to drink tea to participate) with Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and Cat (Cat’s Wire). You can find a link to it at the top of the page. The link party is for all book-related posts from reviews and recommendations to …well, anything related to books at all. Including Top Ten Tuesday, if you want to link your top ten there too!

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is:  Books on My Summer 2026 To-Read List

Since I listed 15 books I want to read this summer in a blog post last week, I thought today I would list 9 mystery books I want to read this summer and one I already read. There are four Agatha Christe books listed here — one I already read, two I’ll be reading for the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge (July and August) and one I threw in for extra.

Already read: 1. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

Description:

The peaceful English village of King’s Abbot is stunned. The widow Ferrars dies from an overdose of Veronal. Not twenty-four hours later, Roger Ackroyd—the man she had planned to marry—is murdered. It is a baffling case involving blackmail and death that taxes Hercule Poirot’s “little grey cells” before he reaches one of the most startling conclusions of his career.

2. The Ivory Dagger (A Miss Silvers Mystery) by Patricia Wentworth (already started)

Description: When Lila Dryden is discovered standing over her fiance’s body with dagger in hand, Miss Silver is called in to investigate, only to discover Lila’s sleepwalking patterns, the return of her former lover, and the victim’s circle of acquaintances–all of whom occasionally wished him dead. 

3. Clouds of Witness by Dorothy Sayers

Description: In a shocking scandal, the likes of which has not been seen in the English aristocracy since the 18th century, the Duke of Denver stands accused of the foul murder or his sister’s fiance, shot through the heart on a cold, lonely night at Riddlesdale Hall in Yorkshire. The Duke’s brother, Lord Peter Wimsey, attempts to prove Denver’s innocence, but why is the Duke refusing to cooperate? And what does his sister, Lady Mary, know about the affair? Trying to reveal the truth, Wimsey uncovers a web of lies and deceit within the family and finds himself faced with the unhappy alternative of sending either his brother or his sister to the gallows – until he himself becomes a target…

4. Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham

Description: A red chess piece… An improbable suicide… A disappearing judge… These were the clues to a killer whose victims never escaped. Judge Lobbett has found evidence pointing to the identity of the criminal mastermind behind the deadly Simister gang that is terrorizing New York. After four attempts on his life, he seeks the help of enigmatic and unorthodox amateur sleuth, Albert Campion, during his travel to England. For safety, Campion sends the Judge and his family to a secluded house in an island on the Suffolk coast.

But that safety is it seemed fitting that odd things should happen in a town called “Mystery Mile”. Soon after their arrival the local vicar is killed – a clear message from the gang. Its a race against time for Campion to get the judge to safety and decipher the clue to their mysterious enemy’s name. But even a connoisseur of crime as Scotland Yard’s Albert Campion had never encountered such elusive clues. He had to trace a mastermind of crime in time to save his client’s life–and his own. Luckily for Judge Lobbett, underneath his constant stream of banter, Campion displays a diamond-sharp intelligence and a natural detective’s instinct… Blackmail, abduction and sudden death bring matters to a climax.

5. Murder, She Wrote: Slaying in Savannah by Donald Bain

Description: Jessica is saddened when her eccentric old friend Tillie Mortelaine passes away—and surprised to learn that Tillie has left her a million dollars. But there are strings attached. Jessica must use the money to help the literacy fund she and Tillie established years ago in Savannah, Georgia. And she will receive the money only if she can solve a mystery within the month: the murder of Tillie’s fiancé, Wanamaker Jones.

As Jessica settles into Tillie’s Savannah mansion and meets Tillie’s boarders, she also discovers that the spirit of Wanamaker Jones haunts the grounds. And that there are those in Savannah who are looking to cash in on Tillie’s demise—and Jessica’s failure…

6. ABC Murders by Agatha Christie

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Description:

When Alice Asher is murdered in Andover, Hercule Poirot is already looking into the clues. Alphabetically speaking, it’s one letter down, twenty-five to go.

There’s a serial killer on the loose. His macabre calling card is to leave the ABC Railway Guide beside each victim’s body. But if A is for Alice Asher, bludgeoned to death in Andover, and B is for Betty Bernard, strangled with her belt on the beach at Bexhill, who will then be Victim C? More importantly, why is this happening?

Often considered to be one of Agatha Christie’s best.

7. By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie

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Description:

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Agatha Christie’s delightful sleuthing duo, investigate the strange and troubling doings behind the scenes at a gothic British nursing home in By the Pricking of My Thumbs

When Tommy and Tuppence visit an elderly aunt in her gothic nursing home, they think nothing of her mistrust of the doctors; after all, Ada is a very difficult old lady.

But when Mrs. Lockett mentions a poisoned mushroom stew and Mrs. Lancaster talks about “something behind the fireplace,” Tommy and Tuppence find themselves caught up in a spine-chilling adventure that could spell death for either of them.

8. Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stuart

Description: When Indian Princess Alexandrina is left penniless by the sudden death of her father, the Maharaja of Brindor, Queen Victoria grants her a grace-and-favor home in Hampton Court Palace. Though rumored to be haunted, Alexandrina and her lady’s maid, Pooki, have no choice but to take the Queen up on her offer.
     Aside from the ghost sightings, Hampton Court doesn’t seem so bad. The princess is soon befriended by three eccentric widows who invite her to a picnic with all the palace’s inhabitants, for which Pooki bakes a pigeon pie. But when General-Major Bagshot dies after eating said pie, and the coroner finds traces of arsenic in his body, Pooki becomes the #1 suspect in a murder investigation.
     Princess Alexandrina isn’t about to let her faithful servant hang. She begins an investigation of her own, and discovers that Hampton Court isn’t such a safe place to live after all.
     With her trademark wit and charm, Julia Stuart introduces us to an outstanding cast of lovable oddballs, from the palace maze-keeper to the unconventional Lady Beatrice (who likes to dress up as a toucan—don’t ask), as she guides us through the many delightful twists and turns in this fun and quirky murder mystery. Everyone is hiding a secret of the heart, and even Alexandrina may not realize when she’s caught in a maze of love.

9. Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie

Description:

Beautiful young Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity, and the means to administer the fatal poison.

Yet, inside the hostile courtroom, only one man still presumed Elinor was innocent until proven Hercule Poirot was all that stood between Elinor and the gallows.

10.The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers by Lilian Jackson Braun

(Little nervous about this one as it is the last in the series before Lilian died and the later books really weren’t very good.)

Description: A twenty-ninth installment of the popular series finds Moose County in an uproar over a string of lucrative inheritances and a bee sting-related death, throughout which Polly departs for Paris, Koko the irrepressible Siamese meets a piano tuner, and Qwill writes a play.

Have you read any of these? What did you think of them?

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Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

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Book recommendation: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews6 Comments

You don’t have to guess who is going to die in this Agatha Christie book since the title is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

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But who killed Roger Ackroyd is going to get complicated and you’ll need to strap yourself in for the rollercoaster ride.

The book was originally presented as a serialization entitled Who Killed Ackroyd? From July to September of 1925 in the London Evening News.

The book is about a doctor, James Sheppard,  who lives in the small English village of King’s Abbot with his spinster sister Caroline and gets wrapped up in the mystery of the murder of well-known village resident Roger Ackroyd, which occurs within 24-hours after another village resident commits suicide.

From Goodreads: “Considered to be one of Agatha Christie’s greatest and also, most controversial mysteries. ‘The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd’ breaks the rules of traditional mystery.”

I didn’t realize this was a Hercule Poirot book before I started it. This is actually the third Poirot book, which I found interesting since in it he is talking about retirement. Dr. Sheppard narrates this book in first person, creating a unique and entertaining way to introduce Poirot.

This is my seventh Agatha Christie read this year as I work through the books on my own and through the 2026 Christie Reading Challenge.

Before I was done with this one, someone online (I can’t remember if it  was a comment on my post or someone else’s post, spilled the beans that the ending was shocking. They said there was a surprising twist so that had me trying to figure out the twist through most of the book, which means I figured out the killer but still had to be sure I was right and still wanted to know how Agatha lead the reader there.

I was right but I still enjoyed the book immensely. Agatha really was ahead of her time with her plot twists and stories overall. Never before, or maybe I should say, rarely before, had mystery writers taken readers down such psychological roads with endings that left the reader not just thinking about the mystery’s solution, but also about the nature of humans and why they do what they do.

I’m not going to say she was the first to do this (hello, Conan Doyle, Allingham, Sayers, etc.), of course, but she did pull off the twists in interesting ways. I would say that the ending of Crooked House was one of the darkest and uncomfortable twists in any era, let alone the Golden Age of Mystery era.

As in any Poirot book, there were hilarious or interesting quotes.

Among them was one that came from Poirot after he accidentally hits Dr. Sheppard with a marrow (squash):

“I demand of you a thousand pardons, monsieur. I am without defence. For some months now I cultivate the marrows. This morning suddenly I enrage myself with these marrows. I send them to promenade themselves — alas! Not only mentally but physically. I seize the biggest. I hurl him over the wall. Monsieur, I am ashamed, I prostrate myself.”

Dr. Sheppard doesn’t know who Poirot, who has moved in next to him and his sister, is at first. He thinks he might be a hairdresser.

“Clearly a retired hairdresser,” he thinks at one point. “Who knows the secrets of human nature better than a hairdresser?”

 Dr. Sheppard calls him “Porrott” and is bewildered by the clues the man is giving him. Poirot also has no idea Dr. Sheppard doesn’t know he’s a famous detective.

“Mr. Ackroyd knew me in London, when I was at work there,” Poirot tells him after the marrow hitting incident. “I have asked him to say nothing of my profession down here.’
Sheppard continues by saying, “I see,” and is amused at Poirot’s “patent snobbery.”

“But the little man went on with an almost grandiloquent smirk,” Christie writes.

“One refers to remain incognito. I am not anxious for notoriety.  I have not even troubled to correct the local version of my name.”

“Indeed,” I said, not knowing quiet what to say.

Another funny quote that I took as a bit of a self-deprecating jab at herself by Christie, since she once wrote romances too: “What made you notice Ralph Paton?  His good looks?”

“No, not that alone — though he is unusually good-looking for an Englishman — what your lady novelists would call a Greek God. No, there was something about that young man that I did  not understand.”

Up next in my Agatha Christie reading journey is a different book for Agatha — The Rose and the Yew Tree — a tragedy written by Agatha under the name Mary Westcott.

Have you read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd? What did you think?

Book recommendations: The Labors of Hercules by Agatha Christie

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, books and reading5 Comments

I’ve been participating in the  Read Christie 2026 Challenge, and for May, I read The Labors of Hercules.

It is a collection of short stories featuring Christie’s Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot.

The stories all connect and follow the theme of Poirot sharing twelve cases to close his career as a private detective. Because he was named after Hercules (though his name does not have the “s”), he decides his final cases will be those that follow the Greek myth of the 12 Labors of Hercules.

I don’t really know a lot about Greek mythology, but I figured it out along the way.

Agatha wrote these as serialized stories in The Strand magazine from 1939 to 1940, with the last one being written for the collection in 1947.

I wasn’t too sure about this one when I started it, but the book, with each chapter focused on a short mystery, grew on me as I kept going. Some of the stories were more serious than the others.

I almost gave up after the second story, since the first couple were not written well to me, but I’m glad I didn’t give up because the stories got better – especially the final one where Poirot ran into a woman he used to have an attraction to – Countess Vera Rossakoff.

There was a lot of humor and just a good story in that one, which was entitled The Capture of Cerberus.

Here are a couple of quotes I enjoyed from that story:

“It is the misfortune of small precise men to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination the Countess held for him. Though I was something like twenty years since he had seen her last, the magic still held. Granted that her makeup now resembled a scene-painter’s sunset, with the woman under the makeup well hidden from sight, to Hercule Poirot she still represented the sumptuous and the alluring.”

When Poirot first sees her again after so many years, it is on an escalator and she shouts back at him to meet her in hell. He later learns from his secretary, Miss Lemon, that Hell is a nightclub, and he later learns the countess owns it.

At first, though, he is totally baffled.

“But what had she meant by it? Had she meant London’s Underground Railways? Or were her words to be taken in a religious sense? Surely, even if her own way of life made Hell the most plausible destination for her after this life, surely—surely her Russian Courtesy would not suggest that Hercule Poirot was necessarily bound for the same place?”

Then, when he finally does get to the club…

“The place was full and it had about it that unmistakable air of success which cannot be counterfeited. There were languid couples in full evening dress, Bohemians in corduroy trousers, stout gentlemen in business suits. The band, dressed as devils, dispensed hot music. No doubt about it, Hell had caught on.

“We have all kinds here,” said the Countess. “That is as it should be, is it not? The gates of Hell are open to all?”

“Except, possibly, to the poor?” Poirot suggested.

The Countess laughed. “Are we not told that it is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Naturally, then, he should have priority in Hell.”

I was surprised by how much Agatha wrote about cocaine use and its destruction in these stories. Sometimes I am very naïve and forget that cocaine and drug abuse was a very real thing even back then.

If I didn’t think it would bore both you and me, I would go through each story and tell you why I did or didn’t like it, and share some quotes. Instead, I will simply reiterate that there were good stories and not as good stories, in my opinion, but that I would read them all because what one person doesn’t like, another person might like.

My mom and I share a Kindle/Goodreads account and I noticed when I finished it that she gave it a three star. I bumped it up to a four, but without that last story I might have given it a three too (or 3.5), even though the idea behind it was very ingenious.

Have you read this collection yet?

Up next for me for the Read Christie 2026 challenge is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Top Ten – Er – Eight Authors I wish were Still Writing Today

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, top-ten-tuesday20 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s prompt is:  Authors You Wish Were Still Writing Today

I only came up with eight authors I wished were still writing, all of them long dead, but I think it’s a good list.

Agatha Christie

The fun she’d have with modern times and modern toys to mix in her plots. The only drawback is that some of her plot points might not work since we now have so many conveniences and cameras and things that could make getting away with murder even more difficult. That might be a challenge Agatha would love to take on, though.  

Margery Allingham

Margery would also love to use some of the more modern elements to knock off a few victims, I think. But she would write it in a much more poetic way than Agatha. This woman’s way with words….wow.

Erle Stanley Gardner

Perry Mason on his cellphone  telling Burger to stuff it where the sun don’t shine. Also, just more great stories with other characters — Bertha Cool on a podcast, telling everyone stories about her greatest cases.

L.M. Montgomery

I would love to read more sweet, touching stories by her. Whatever she wants to write. Clean, no swearing, just writing about every day life in a beautiful rural setting in Canada.

Donald Bain

Donald was a prolific ghost writer, but I just need him to write more Murder, She Wrote books that feel like authentic Jessica. I love how he makes her so real and fleshed out. He writes it from a first-person point of view and adds in her thoughts about her late husband Frank. She’s always so caring about her friends too. I mean, I really forget it is a man writing it. I feel like he’s truly seeing Jessica’s world through the eyes of a woman. I also love when he adds in history and facts about Maine or whatever city or country Jessica is visiting. He completely immerses you in the story.

Mildred Wirt Benson

I love Mildred’s children’s mystery books. If you don’t know, she was the author who helped create the Nancy Drew books and was the first Carolyn Keene. She later went on to write other children’s books with girl detectives, such as the Penny Parker series

I loved the plots she came up with and always find her plots in the Nancy Drew books so much better than ones written by other authors using the pseudonym.

Mildred wrote 130 books for juveniles and a few for adults. I hope to look up those adult ones soon.

J.R.R. Tolkien

I would love if Tolkien was still  writing and would infuse some of his wisdom and purity into fantasy books of today. He would, however, probably find some of his work edited so we don’t have to read so many descriptions of trees.

C.S. Lewis

I would love to particularly read Clive’s theological thoughts in relationship to the unique challenges of our modern world, which really aren’t that unique, but feel like they are. I would love to know what he thinks of the modern church, our crazy leaders, Christians who are so obsessed with politics that they’ve lost sight of Jesus…and so much more. I have a feeling he would anger so many people.

Are there any authors that you wish were still writing today?

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

 Book Recommendation: Crooked House by Agatha Christie

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, books and reading8 Comments

Here is some advice for you if you decide to read Crooked House by Agatha Christie: If you think that you know who the guilty party is, but you’re uncomfortable with who you think the guilty party is, go with that feeling and your choice.

That won’t make sense until you read the book, so here is a little background on this one, which does not feature one of Christie’s famous detectives.

This book is a standalone novel that starts with the main character Charles Hayward planning to marry Sophia Leonides who he met in Egypt toward the end of the war. They hang out while in Eqypt and correspond some afterward, but drift apart until he returns to England two years later. It’s after his return that he reads in the paper that Sophia’s grandfather has died. He knows it is her grandfather because she once told him all about her family.

“’We live in a crooked little house . . .’”

“I must have looked startled, for she seemed amused, and explained by elaborating the quotation. ‘And they all lived together in a little crooked house,’ That’s us. Not really such a little house either. But definitely crooked — running to gables and halftimbering!”

In this case the crooked little house quote is a play on the nursery rhyme “There Was a Crooked Little Man,” but I am not familiar with that nursery rhyme.

Due to the blitz, Sophia’s extended family was all living in the house with the patriarch, Aristide Leonides, a short Greek man who commanded a lot of presence. Her family includes her younger brother and sister, her parents, her uncle and an aunt by marriage, her grandfather, a great aunt, and a step-grandmother.”

Charles reaches out to her by telegram, and she asks to meet that night at a local restaurant. The connection they had two years ago is still strong, and he still wants to marry her, but she says she can’t marry him now, and maybe never. She believes her grandfather has been murdered, and she doesn’t want to ruin Charles’ reputation as a member of the Diplomatic Service because she feels certain the murder was committed by someone in her family.

The main suspect is her step-grandmother, Brenda, with the tutor for Sophia’s siblings a close second because the family believes the two were having an affair.

In the first part of the book, we get to know the entire family, and it isn’t very pretty. Many of them are selfish and bitter people looking out for themselves, and the ones who don’t seem that way may be putting on an act. Maybe even Sophia is putting on an act. Figuring out who committed the crime will baffle Charles and Scotland Yard, and when you get to the ending — oof. It’s definitely a plot twist, one I saw coming, but still had to find out how and why.

I would definitely recommend this one if you’ve never read Agatha before or even if you have. I think it’s one of her best, and I read today that she called it one of her favorites to write. It is definitely a book that will stick with you over the years, making you think (and shudder a bit) long after you’ve put it down.

Some quotes from it I enjoyed:

“Curious thing, rooms. Tell you quite a lot about the people who live in them.”

***

“I think people more often kill those they love than those they hate. Possibly because only the people you love can really make life unendurable to you.”

***

“I’ve never met a murderer who wasn’t vain… It’s their vanity that leads to their undoing, nine times out of ten. They may be frightened of being caught, but they can’t help strutting and boasting and usually they’re sure they’ve been far too clever to be caught.”

***

“Murder, you see, is an amateur crime… One feels, very often, as though these nice ordinary chaps, had been overtaken, as it were, by murder, almost accidentally. They’ve been in a tight place, or they’ve wanted something very badly, money or a woman – and they’ve killed to get it. The brake that operates with most of us doesn’t operate with them… They continue to be aware that murder is wrong, but they do not feel it. I don’t think, in my experience, that any murderer has really felt remorse… Murderers are set apart, they are ‘different’ – murder is wrong – but not for them – for them it is necessary – the victim has ‘asked for it,’ it was ‘the only way.”

Book Recommendation: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews5 Comments

I read Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie for the first time this month as part of Read Christie 2026 with the Official Agatha Christie site.

I’ve read plenty of Christie’s books already but have always steered clear of the “big ones” that everyone knows because I’ve usually seen the movies and know the stories. I have learned, though, that there can be changes in the movies and sometimes they aren’t always for the better.

One example was And Then There Were None. If you have not read that one, you really need to, even if you saw any of the movies. It was the first Christie I read and … whoa. I sat there at the end feeling horrified and in awe at the same time. What a twisted, but well-written story.

(An aside…anyone who doesn’t think Agatha disappeared for 11 days as a way to get back at Archie and buys the whole “temporary amnesia” story hasn’t read enough of Agatha’s books. The woman had a million ideas how to get back at someone and how to kill them.  If you don’t know what I am talking about – do a quick online search. It’s like the plot of one of her books but actually real life.)

For those who have never read this one, here is simple summary: a group of people end up stranded on the Orient Express (a train in Europe) during a blizzard when one of them is murdered. Too bad for the murderer, renowned detective Hercule Poirot has hopped on at the last minute and is working hard to solve the case while everyone waits for help to arrive.

What is so funny in the Poirot books is how Poirot always expects everyone to know who he is, and most people look at him in confusion when he introduces himself.

It’s always like, “Surely you must know me,” and then the other person looks confused and says, “No, I’m afraid not.”

Here are some actual quotes from the book that I enjoyed:

“Mon ami, if you wish to catch a rabbit you put a ferret into the hole and if the rabbit is there he runs. That’s all I have done.”

***

“When he passed me in the restaurant,” he said at last. “I had a curious impression. It was as though a wild animal — an animal savage, but savage, you understand — had passed me by.”

“And yet he looked altogether of the most respectable.”

“Precisement! The body — the cage — is everything of the most respectable — but through the bars, the wild animal looks out.”

***

“But I know human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things.”

***

“You’ve a pretty good nerve,” said Ratchett. “Will twenty thousand dollars tempt you?”

It will not.”

If you’re holding out for more, you won’t get it. I know what a thing’s worth to me.”

I, also M. Ratchett.”

What’s wrong with my proposition?”

Poirot rose. “If you will forgive me for being personal – I do not like your face, M. Ratchett,” he said.”

***

“All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages. For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought together. They sleep and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of three days they part, they go their several ways, never, perhaps, to see each other again.”

***

I’ve already read my Christie for this month, but I’ve tossed Crooked House in the mix as an extra Christie read because my husband recommended it.

In April, I’ll be reading a Miss Marple — A Caribbean Mystery.

Have you read this one or any Christie books? If you have read her books, do you have a favorite?

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.