Book Review: Curtain by Agatha Christie

The house guests at Styles seemed perfectly pleasant to Captain Hastings; there was his own daughter Judith, an inoffensive ornithologist called Norton, dashing Mr Allerton, brittle Miss Cole, Doctor Franklin and his fragile wife Barbara , Nurse Craven, Colonel Luttrell and his charming wife, Daisy, and the charismatic Boyd-Carrington. So Hastings was shocked to learn from Hercule Poirot's declaration that one of them was a five-times murderer. True, the ageing detective was crippled with arthritis, but had his deductive instincts finally deserted him?

The novel features Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings in their final appearances in Christie's works. It is a country house novel, with all the characters and the murder set in one house. Not only does the novel return the characters to the setting of her first, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, but it reunites Poirot and Hastings, who last appeared together in Dumb Witness in 1937.[summary via Goodreads]

Since I discovered Agatha Christie's mystery novels as a teenager, I've been enthralled with her novels for decades. Regardless of the setting or the sleuth, she never fails to impress me with her ability to construct a delightful mystery, that has always left me guessing. While I've not quite read every mystery yet (but I'm working on it!), I have enjoyed re-reading some of my favourites. I've read Curtain several times, and decided to take in a re-read recently.

For those that have never picked up a Agatha Christie novel (and I think you should!), Curtain isn't a good place to start. This is a brilliant, well crafted mystery, but it pairs up with The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and while it is not required reading, I believe reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles first would be well worth it. It sets the scene of Styles and the relationship between sleuth, Sir Hercule Poirot, and his faithful assistant, Captain Arthur Hastings. 

Curtain is one of the very best mystery novels I've ever read (and I've read a lot of them!). Agatha Christie outdid herself with this one, providing a very interesting ending for Poirot. Of my initial read, I would never have predicted the outcome. On re-reads of the novel, I am more in awe of her talent and how she provided a perfect ending for Poirot. 

The mystery itself is very interesting, and I don't think even the most experienced mystery reader would guess on the first read. Even years later, on re-reading, I am still impressed. 

If you haven't read Curtain yet I strongly recommend picking it up. Even if you're like me and not a big Poirot fan (I'm more Team-Miss Marple!), you will be impressed by this mystery and the final denouement. Well recommended for Agatha Christie fans.

Purchase Curtain from Amazon.

Book Review: Off the Books by Lucy Arlington

The Novel Idea Literary Agency has planned a wedding-themed week for Inspiration Valley, celebrating not only North Carolina’s best vendors but also some of the agency’s most popular bridal books. The fact that Lila can use the event to plan her own impending nuptials is just the icing on the cake.

But wedding bells turn to warning bells when Lila finds a dead man facedown in the frosting. Soon it’s discovered that the victim was connected to several Novel Idea authors, all of whom quickly become suspects in the case. It’s up to Lila and her fellow agents to find the real killer before one of their clients winds up scribbling stories from behind bars...[summary via Amazon]

It's a bitter sweet world, we cozy readers, are currently living in. A lot of cozy mystery series are being cancelled and we are saying goodbye to much beloved characters, and towns. When you read you immerse yourself in the story and it can be very much like visiting family and friends. As is the way, when a series ends, it is sad to not have new adventures with those characters. 

I've been taking adventures with Lila and her family and friends in Inspiration Valley since her first adventure. The Novel Idea Mysteries quickly became one of my favorite adventures and it was very bitter sweet for me to pick up the last adventure. I'm hoping somewhere down the track there will be more adventures, but for now, I'm happy to have had one final adventure with Lila.

In Off the Books it's wedding fever, as the agency holds a wedding-themed week. Disaster strikes when someone turns up dead, and one of Lila's authors is a suspect. Together with other members of the agency, they look to find a killer before one of their authors ends up behind bars!

I really enjoyed this mystery. It kept me guessing right until the end, as I didn't solve the mystery before Lila. I also liked the wrapping up of several other character storylines. Even with murder abound, Lucy Arlington has managed to create a beautiful final book in the series, and give several characters their "happy ending", which as a huge fan of this series, I was so happy to see.

I thoroughly encourage readers to read this series. It's a fun, beautifully written series, with memorable characters and I'm looking forward to reading other books by the author in the future.

Book Review: Putting on the Witch by Jim & Joyce Lavene

In the latest mystery from the bestselling authors of Looking for Mr. Good Witch, the retired witches of Wilmington, North Carolina, are ready to kick up their heels...

With their coven’s spell book still missing, Molly and Elsie—along with their ghostly friend Olivia, her daughter Dorothy, and her boyfriend Brian—are all on edge, especially now that Dorothy’s infamously wicked father is back in the picture. So when they receive an invitation to an exclusive Witches Ball, the ladies jump at the chance to dress up and have some fun.

The castle locale is spectacular and the party is hopping, but the festivities come to a swift end when a member of the Grand Council of Witches is murdered. With the whole place on lock down, the coven is determined to find the cunning killer, even with an angry council and a real Spanish Inquisitor breathing down their necks...[summary via Amazon]

The witches are back for a spine-tingling good time this Fall, with their third adventure - and in  my opinion, their best one yet!!

Molly and Elsie, along with their friends, are headed to a very exclusive Witches Ball. However fun and frivolity soon turns to murder when a member of the Council turns up dead, and the ladies are called to find the murder. With danger lingering in every dark corner in the castle, it is a spine-tingling good time, as I watched Molly, Elsie, Olivia, Dorothy and Brian investigate and try to find a killer!

Alike to other readers of this series, reading Putting on the Witch was very bittersweet for me. I've read and loved so many books that Jim and Joyce Lavene have read, and with both of them passing away within the last year, reading their final book in this series was so bittersweet. Jim and Joyce Lavene always created memorable characters, in unlikely situations, that always left me more than satisfied when I turned the last page. This series is certainly no exception. The Retired Witches Mysteries is a first class series, and any fan of para-normal cozy mysteries should certainly add this one to their list.

If you're looking for a bewitching tale to read this Fall, pick up the Retired Witches mysteries. You will love all the characters, both human, ghostly and feline, and will be wanting to read the entire series again and again. 

Book Review: The Book Club Murders by Leslie Nagel

Charley Carpenter has poured heart and soul into her clothing store, Old Hat Vintage Fashions. She’ll do anything to make it a success—even join the stuffy Agathas Book Club in order to cultivate customers among the wealthy elite of Oakwood, Ohio.

Although mixing with the most influential women in town has its advantages, Charley finds the endless gossip a high price to pay. But after two women with close ties to the Agathas are brutally murdered, everyone falls under threat—and suspicion. When key evidence indicates that both murders are the work of the same hand, Charley realizes that the killer has arranged each corpse in perfect imitation of crime scenes from the Club’s murder mystery reading list. She uses her membership in the Club to convince Detective Marcus Trenault to use her as an inside informant. Not that he could stop her anyway.

Intelligent, fearless, and every bit as stubborn as Marc is, Charley soon learns the Agathas aren’t the only ones with secrets to protect. Passions explode as she and Marc must race against time to prevent another murder. And if Charley’s not careful, she may find herself becoming the killer’s next plot twist.

Being a lifelong devoted Agatha Christie fan, when I first read the plot of The Book Club Murders I knew this was a book I would have to read. I love when authors incorporate book clubs into the setting of cozy mysteries, and one with a "Agathas Book Club" was bound to be a home-run, and it was exactly that!

From the first page to the last I became caught up in the action-packed adventure, as I followed along with Charley and Marc, trying to untangle the mystery of the murders. Leslie Nagel sets a good pace for readers, giving readers a chance to collect clues, but also ensuring that readers won't want to put the book down.

I liked seeing the sparks fly between Charley and Marc. Charley is feisty and stubborn and the exact kind of sleuth I like to go on adventures with. She's never boring for a second, and I loved how she threw herself into the investigation, and was determined to find the killer, to the point of possibly putting her own life in danger.

The Book Club Murders is a home-run debut for me. With action, adventure and murders involving mystery books it is to sure to please every cozy mystery fan! I highly recommend adding The Book Club Murders to your Fall reading list.

Book Spotlight - Closed Casket by Sophie Hannah, a Hercule Poirot Myster

Listen to After the Funeral by Agatha Christie

A Free Serialization of the Complete Audiobook in Eight Parts

Presented by Sophie Hannah

Throughout the serialization, Sophie informs listeners on the crucial distinction between the truly impossible and the deeply unlikely, points out the magic of a very personal motive, and explains her belief that “the best stories are the ones that would only ever happen once.”

Hercule Poirot is called on to investigate the murder of a brother and sister, in this classic Agatha Christie mystery now available in an updated edition with a foreword Sophie Hannah.

“He was murdered, wasn’t he?”

When Cora Lansquenet is savagely murdered, the extraordinary remark she had made the previous day at her brother Richard’s funeral suddenly takes on a chilling significance. At the reading of Richard’s will, Cora was clearly heard to say, “It’s been hushed up very nicely, hasn’t it. But he was murdered, wasn’t he?”

Did Cora’s accusation a dark truth that sealed her own fate? Or are the siblings’ deaths just tragic coincidences?

Desperate to know the truth, the Lansquenet’s solicitor turns to Hercule Poirot to unravel the mystery. For even after the funeral, death isn’t finished yet . 

In 2014 Sophie Hannah received wide-spread acclaim for penning an all-new mystery featuring Agatha Christie’s legendary hero Hercule Poirot, The Monogram Murders, an instant bestseller. Reviews were outstanding, praising Hannah for her command of the character and voice. So when the time came to write a new story, Sophie knew there was only one way she would write another book—even though she enjoyed writing the first so much—she knew she would need to have an idea that was clever and compelling enough to think, 'This feels very Agatha-ish. Poirot MUST solve this case.'

And then it came to her, “…as if by magic (that really is how it felt!) an idea landed in my head. A motive for murder. It was incredibly simple—so simple, it almost seemed too obvious—and yet I didn't think it had been done before.”

The Monogram Murders: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery

Series: Hercule Poirot Mystery Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (June 9, 2015) ISBN-13: 978-0062297228

"I'm a dead woman, or I shall be soon . . ."

Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffeehouse is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered. Though terrified, she begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done. Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at a London Hotel have been murdered, and a monogrammed cufflink has been placed in each one's mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman? While Poirot struggles to put together the bizarre pieces of the puzzle, the murderer prepares another hotel bedroom for a fourth victim.

Lady Athelinda Playford has planned a house party at her mansion Clonakilty, County Cork, but it is no ordinary gathering. As guests arrive, Lady Playford summons her lawyer to make an urgent change to her will – one she intends to announce at dinner that night. She has decided to cut off her two children without a penny and leave her fortune to someone who has only weeks to live…

Among Lady Playford’s guests are two men she has never met—the famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, and Inspector Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard. Neither knows why he has been invited…until Poirot starts to wonder if Lady Playford expects a murderer to strike. But why does she seem so determined to provoke, in the presence of a possible killer? When the crime is committed in spite of Poirot’s best efforts to stop it, will he be able to unveil the true reason behind Lady Playford’s drastic change of heart, and ultimately, identify the killer?

About the Author:

Sophie Hannah is the internationally bestselling author of 10 psychological thrillers, which have been published in more than 20 countries and adapted for television. Her novel The Carrier won the 2013 Specsavers National Book Awards Crime Thriller of the Year. Sophie is an Honorary Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, and as a poet has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize.

Author Links Webpage - Blog - Facebook - Twitter 

Purchase Closed Casket - Amazon - B&N - HarperCollins - Books-A-Million - IndieBound
Purchase The Monogram Murders - Amazon - B&N - HarperCollins Publishers - Books-A-Million -IndieBound

Tour Participants – Spotlight Tour
September 1 – The Book's the Thing
September 1 – The Cozy Mystery Journal
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September 10 – Mystery Thrillers and Romantic Suspense Reviews
September 10 – The Power of Words
September 11 – Cozy Up With Kathy
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September 12 – Jemima Pett, Author
September 12 – The Girl with Book Lungs

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