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| Book Cover via Amazon.com |
Opinion
Hello again my dear readers, I wanted to give you all a treat today. I’ve been saving this one. I chose for this Hercule Poirot’s first introduction to the world in this first case of his. This is a review that comes from the heart, and I hope you all appreciate it. I picked this up on Kindle Unlimited, so if you have never had the fun of a mystery journal and following a crime, consider this story as an excellent place to try it.
What is a mystery journal? I’ve talked about this in previous reviews for mystery novels, but I wanted to take a moment to at least talk about mine. Mostly, it’s a little notebook I keep beside me as I read and write down clues and facts as the story progresses so that I can figure out who dun it, and see if I’m correct. I got the idea long ago from the old show “Murder; She Wrote” because that old lady always had a way of keeping facts in her head. I’m no Jessica Fletcher, so I wanted to keep the events as I went too.
I write down the characters I’m introduced to, and then any facts as I go. I usually give each one their page, and then start a page just for the murder or crime. The crime I write down facts as I got for that, and see if any of the clues tie to any of the characters I wrote down. It’s fun, and it probably can translate to a drinking game.
For this story, we go into the mystery on a clean slate. This is the first time Poirot shows up, and we know nothing of the world he lives in later. Compared to his other stories then, this is a good starter one.
My first impressions of this story are that it has a very straight forward beginning with the explanation of facts. For those of you keeping a journal write down what you can. When you get to the crime, take note of what you think is important to you. Now the MC will say things he noticed but still take down whatever description you feel is essential.
Let’s go into a couple of critiques here for the story, and my first comes from the “Story Structure, Foundation and Presentation” part of my scoring. Specifically, there are many italics in random places to emphasize accented dialog. It’s not terrible, but it can hurt the eyes. The second critique has to do with some text stretching from the Justified margin alignment. Though it looks a bit ugly on the page, it at least is infrequent.
Let’s talk about what I do like very much about the novel. This wasn’t a case where you get a “Murder, She Wrote” ending, in that the clues you need are in the story and not at the end in an “Oh didn’t I mention?” moment. It’s well done, well written and I like the layout of facts. There are many places where you have to make your mind up, and not get lost in the thoughts of others. I enjoy that as well.
The red herrings in this story are done very well, and you may not realize that is what they are until it’s too late. Also, don’t get attached to the idea of “eliminated” facts. Sometimes things are circular in the logic of the story.
The pacing of the story is lovely. The tension in various sections is very high, but then it is eased off gently. It works well together; it has a nice cadence to it between clue finding and what happens after that. It reads very well for giving information.
The best part of the story is the ending. I love mystery stories because they are the ones where all plot points and story arch's come together at the end. Agatha Christie was great about wrapping up the story and making the reader want more. She had this fantastic idea long before it became part of the modern writer's thoughts, of series. While I’m sure that started more with the “Sherlock Holmes” books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Christie put her own unique and well-done spin on things.
Score
After doing the math here, Agatha Christie’s first dive into Poirot is a 91/100 and, because this is an excellent manual for a mystery, I am putting this in the “Mrs. Y Recommends” pile. The reason I am doing so is that if you are a mystery or suspense writer and are working on how to structure things, this should be a good manual for how to start a series when it comes to pacing.
