Unapologetic Reviews

I read The Rose and the Yew Tree as the July selection for the 2026 Read Christie Challenge. The theme for the month was “Best Kept Secret,” referring to the novels Agatha Christie published under the name Mary Westmacott. Christie used the pseudonym because these books were very different from the detective fiction that had already made her famous, and her identity remained hidden for around fifteen years. That separation allowed the Westmacott novels to be read without everyone immediately comparing them to Poirot, Miss Marple, or the elaborate mysteries readers already associated with her name. The Rose and the Yew Tree is certainly a departure from the Agatha Christie books I normally read. Despite a synopsis that left me unsure about what kind of story I was entering, this is not a mystery. There is no murder to investigate, no collection of suspects, and no final scene in which every clue suddenly falls into place. Instead, it is a psychological character study, a political nove...

I read A Siege of Bitterns by Steve Burrows for the 2026 PopSugar Reading Challenge, for prompt number 45, "A book that features birding". And there was certainly plenty of birding in this book. No one could accuse it of not delivering on the prompt. The story follows Detective Chief Inspector Domenic Jejeune, a French-Canadian detective who moved to England after a scandal in Canada interrupted his career. He has a reputation as an exceptional investigator, but he is also an avid birder. He lives in Norfolk, surrounded by marshes, wetlands, and bird reserves, and when several deaths occur, the investigation becomes intertwined with birdwatchers, conservation efforts, and environmental issues. Unfortunately, this was a very disappointing mystery for me. I gave the book two stars. My biggest problem was that the balance felt completely wrong. I went into the story expecting a murder mystery with some birdwatching elements in the background. Instead, it felt like I got a birdw...

I watched the adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd , based on the novel by Agatha Christie, shortly after finishing the book. One thing became clear very quickly: this adaptation is far more dramatic than the source material. The novel is almost a cosy mystery. Despite the murder, much of the story revolves around village life, conversations, and the relationship between Poirot and Dr Sheppard. The adaptation shifts the focus firmly onto Poirot, which is actually something many Poirot adaptations do. Interestingly, a surprising number of the original novels are not really about Poirot at all. He often enters the story as an outsider and solves the mystery, while the narrative follows other characters. In the novel, Dr Sheppard narrates the story. Through his eyes, we meet Poirot, who is supposedly retired and spending his time growing vegetable marrows. One of my favourite moments in the book is when Dr Sheppard initially assumes that Poirot is a hairdresser because of his immacul...

I read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie for the 2026 Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. June’s theme was “Best to Read in One Sitting”, and this was the official pick for the month. Interestingly, I already knew who the murderer was before I started reading. Not because I remembered every detail, but because this book’s ending is so famous that it has become part of detective fiction history. So instead of trying to solve the mystery, I spent most of the book looking for clues and trying to see how Christie constructed the puzzle. And honestly, there are not that many obvious clues. Reading it felt a little like watching an episode of Columbo when you already know the culprit. You stop focusing on the question of who did it and start paying attention to all the little details, contradictions, and moments that feel slightly off. What surprised me was that while I remembered who the killer was, I did not really remember how everything worked. That part was still fun to unc...

I watched The Labours of Hercules , season 13, episode 4 of Agatha Christie’s Poirot , after reading the original short story collection, and I think its placement in the series is one of its strongest choices. In the original book, Poirot is thinking about retirement. Before he leaves detective work behind, he decides to take on twelve final cases, each one loosely connected to one of the Labours of Hercules. Of course, the book was published in 1947, so Poirot does not actually retire, but the idea of him preparing for the end of his career is built into the premise. That makes this episode’s position in the television series feel very deliberate. It is the penultimate episode, coming just before Curtain, and that gives the adaptation a sense of finality that honours the original concept beautifully. The original book is a collection of twelve short stories. Each “labour” is its own case, and many of them are built around deception. People pretend to be what they are not. Identities ...

I read The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie as part of the 2026 Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. This was for May, and the theme was “Best Short Story Collection”. This is a collection of twelve short Hercule Poirot cases, built around a very fun premise. Poirot is thinking about retirement, but before he finally gives up detective work and settles down with his vegetable marrows, he decides to complete his own version of the Twelve Labours of Hercules. Since his name is Hercule, he chooses twelve cases that somehow connect to the famous mythological labours. I really liked this idea. It gives the collection a clear shape, so it does not feel like twelve random stories placed together. Some of the connections are quite direct, while others are more playful. A lion becomes a little Pekingese dog. A dangerous criminal becomes a wild boar. Cerberus becomes a large black dog at the entrance of a nightclub called Hell. It is Christie having fun with her own structure, and I enjoyed...

I read Murder Is a Piece of Cake by Valerie Burns as part of the 2026 PopSugar Reading Challenge for prompt 14, “A book set in Michigan or written by an author from Michigan”. Valerie Burns herself is not from Michigan, but the book clearly is set there, so it fits the prompt through the setting. The story takes place in New Bison, which is a fictional small town based on New Buffalo, Michigan. It has that classic cosy mystery atmosphere. Close knit community, familiar faces, and just enough secrets under the surface to keep things interesting. This is the second book in the Baker Street Mysteries series. I had already read and enjoyed the first one, so I decided to continue with the series. That turned out to be a very good decision, because the first book leaves a few threads open, and this one continues to build on them rather than resetting everything. The plot follows Maddy, who is still settling into her new life as a bakery owner. Her development is one of the strongest aspects...

I read Two Parts Sugar, One Part Murder by Valerie Burns for the 2026 PopSugar Reading Challenge, prompt 12, “A book with "pop" or "sugar" in the title”. I gave it four stars. This is a straightforward cosy mystery. Maddie is an influencer in Los Angeles whose life collapses after she is left at the altar. She then inherits a bakery, a house, and a dog from her great aunt in a small town called New Buffalo. The will requires her to stay there for a year. Soon after she arrives, the town’s mayor is murdered, and she gets involved in the investigation, while using her influencer career to the advantage of her new bakery, and the whole town. The strongest part of the book is the cast. Maddie works as a main character because her situation forces a clear transition. She is used to a curated online life and has to adjust to a slower, more personal environment. That contrast drives a lot of the early interactions. The side characters are distinct and easy to keep track o...

After reading A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie, I wanted to see how the story translates to screen, particularly because this feels like a book that should benefit from its setting. I watched two adaptations: the 1983 American TV film and the 2013 ITV version from the Agatha Christie's Marple series. They approach the same material in very different ways. The 1983 adaptation is the more straightforward of the two. It updates the setting from the 1960s to the 1980s, which is immediately visible in the styling. The hair, the clothes, the overall look place it firmly in that decade. All the actors are American, including Miss Marple, who speaks with an American accent. This creates a slightly odd effect, because the character is still supposed to be from St Mary Mead. There is no attempt to reframe her as American, so the accent stands out. In terms of structure, this version stays close to the original story. The plot unfolds in a direct, almost procedural way. The key events ...

I read A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie for the 2026 Agatha Christie Reading Challenge, as the April selection. The novel was published in 1964 and is one of Christie’s more “exotic” settings, taking place on a Caribbean island inspired by her own travels. The story follows Miss Marple as she takes a holiday at a resort. An elderly retired military officer, Major Palgrave, spends his time telling stories from his past. At one point, he begins describing a case involving a murderer who managed to escape justice. While talking, he suddenly realises that the person he is describing is actually present at the resort. He attempts to show Miss Marple a photograph, but is interrupted. Shortly afterwards, he is found dead. The central mystery becomes identifying who he recognised and why that person needed him silenced. Structurally, this is a relatively simple mystery. The solution is seeded early, and there are multiple clues from the beginning that point towards the culprit. There is...

I read Nobody’s Baby by Olivia Waite as my March Pick of the Month, as it was released on March 10th. This is the second instalment in the Dorothy Gentleman series and a short novella at around 144 pages. I read it in a single day. The series is set aboard the HMS Fairweather , a generational spaceship carrying thousands of people to a new home. The central character, Dorothy “Dottie” Gentleman , works as a detective on board the ship. As in the first book, the story combines a mystery plot with science fiction elements, particularly around identity and consciousness . The premise of this instalment is simple but immediately intriguing. A baby is found left on the doorstep of Dorothy’s nephew and his partner. This should not be possible. The inhabitants of the ship live in manufactured bodies that are not supposed to be capable of reproduction. The mystery therefore begins with a clear question: how can a baby exist in this system at all? From there, the plot develops in two directi...

I read Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite in preparation for the second book in the series, which is being published in March and which I chose as my March pick of the month. This first instalment is very short, a little over one hundred pages, so I read it quickly; essentially in a single sitting. It works almost like an introduction to the setting and the main character, but it still manages to tell a complete little mystery. The story follows Dorothy Gentleman , a detective aboard a massive generation ship carrying around ten thousand people from Earth to a distant new planet. The journey will take centuries, far longer than a human lifespan, so the inhabitants have developed ways to survive the passage. Their consciousness can be stored and transferred into new bodies , allowing people to live through multiple physical lives. The idea itself is not new. Anyone familiar with Altered Carbon will recognise the concept immediately. What I liked here is not the novelty of the technolo...

I read Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie for the Read Christie 2026 Challenge , where it was the book for March. What makes this read slightly unusual for me is that I already knew the story very well before opening the novel. I had seen the television adaptation with David Suchet several times, and that version remains one of my favourite interpretations of the detective. I had also seen the classic 1970s film adaptation and the more recent modern version, which unfortunately stripped Poirot of what makes him unique and made an action movie. Even so, I had somehow never actually read the book itself. The novel opens slightly earlier than most screen adaptations. Poirot is travelling through the Middle East and boards a train from Aleppo before eventually arriving in Istanbul. Those early scenes were a small pleasure for me because they mention real places I know well, such as the Galata Bridge , which I have walked across many times. Christie also references the famo...

Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chien was my pick for the 2026 PopSugar Reading Challenge prompt number 7, “A book about a granny hobby.” I genuinely could not remember why I had chosen it for that category. My guess is that I thought this would involve cooking, but it doesn’t. I wasn’t sure if the book would fit, but then I realised it did have a granny hobby. Gossip. And an entire supporting cast of aunties and granny aged women who treat information as currency and sport. That counts. I think. I am still reserving the right to revisit the prompt at the end of the year. This is the first book in the Noodle Shop Mystery series , set in Asia Village in Cleveland, a small shopping plaza filled with Asian owned businesses. Herbal shops, restaurants, gift stores. It is, without question, the strongest element of the novel. You can see it clearly. Fluorescent lit corridors. Steam rising from bamboo baskets. Aunties standing in doorways, commenting on everything and everyone. The community...

Death in a Strange Country by Donna Leon was published in 1993 and is the second novel in the Commissario Brunetti series . I read it as part of the 2026 PopSugar Reading Challenge , for the prompt “A book that makes you want to travel to Italy” though whether any book needs to convince me of that feels almost beside the point. In retrospect, it’s an unusual choice for the prompt. This is not a romantic or sun-drenched novel of Italy, rather a sombre, politically charged, and often quite bleak. Yet Venice is present in every page, not as a postcard backdrop but as a lived-in city of canals, offices, homes, and compromises. That, in its own way, still counts. The novel opens with Brunetti being called to a body pulled from a Venetian canal , later identified as a young American soldier. His investigation leads him beyond Venice to the American base in Vicenza , and from there into a widening web of secrecy, institutional power, and corruption. At first, the story feels slightly unmo...