Mini Christie Mystery Reviews

We’re back again with the Queen of Mystery! Today we will look at a Miss Marple mystery and a Hercule Poirot mystery. The Marple is a smaller, lesser known one, but the Poirot is one of the more popular Christie novels.

A Pocket Full of Rye (Miss Marple #7)

Rating: ★★★★ // A Nursery Rhyme Retold

Favorite Line: “I should hardly advise you to go too much by all I’ve told you. I’m a malicious creature.”

Review:

I felt pretty happy with myself when I accurately guessed that the nursery rhyme would play a large role in this book–now this is a very obvious guess and I really shouldn’t feel proud about noticing the obvious ;). However, I’m going to take whatever pat-on-the-back I can get with these stories, because I NEVER guess the ending correctly.

This one follows a string of deaths in a household, and like always Miss Marple intervenes, and through her witty narrative, is able to accurately figure out all the details before anyone else.

This story was quick paced and very entertaining. The characters (I should say the main family members) are horrible people, but they are interesting enough to keep you engaged in their story.  Marple is actually not the primary detective in this story, and Inspector Neele is a rather enjoyable character, and I enjoyed his presence in the book.

While I am not the best at figuring out the whodunnit in her books, this one really seemed like it came from way out in left field. I may have missed a big clue that made it a little more obvious, but this one, more than her others, really shocked me, and I would have liked a some more hints that it could be a possible outcome.

Miss Marple remains one of my favorites after this one, she is witty and sassy and I kind of want to be her.

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Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot #10)

Rating: ★★★★★ // WOAAHHH….trust no one…

Favorite Line: “The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”

Review:

There is a murder, and Hercule Poirot could not be happier! What a beautiful coincidence that our amateur detective happened to be on the Orient Express during the rare occasion that a snow storm forces the train to a complete standstill in the middle of nowhere, AND the rare occasion that a murder takes place on the train.

In my last review of a Poirot book, I mentioned my slight dislike of this character, and at the beginning of this book, I still held that dislike. As the story went on, however, he grew on me. I saw less of his character as annoying and more of it being oddly charming (nerdy charming, but charming nonetheless). This change in opinion is the same for the book too. I thought it started much slower than any of the other Christie books I have read, and I really was not liking it. I was shocked! I had liked every book of hers and then I come to one of her most popular and I don’t like it!?!?

Luckily, like a cheap bottle of wine, the book gets better the further you go. What seems like a mystery that will be solved quickly and uneventfully, turns into a highly complex mystery where you are start to blame everyone and nobody at the same time–I’m pretty sure I blamed myself for the murder somewhere in the middle there.

I really don’t want to give anything away, but if you, like I did, find yourself not liking the beginning, just keep pushing, it gets better, I promise, and toward the end, I really couldn’t put it down.

To buy this book through my affiliate page on Book Depository (discounted and free shipping, click here!