Unapologetic Reviews

I read Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie for the Read Christie 2026 Reading Challenge. This year’s overall theme is “Biggest, Best and Beloved,” and the October prompt was “Best Cold Case,” which is an extremely appropriate category for this book because the murder at the centre of the story has been sleeping for almost twenty years. There is also something a little sad about reading Sleeping Murder because it was the final Miss Marple novel to be published. It came out posthumously in 1976, although Christie had actually written it decades earlier, during the Second World War, and deliberately kept it back for later publication. So it is not really an elderly Christie saying goodbye to Miss Marple. Still, knowing that this was the last Miss Marple novel readers received gives it a strange sense of finality, particularly when the book itself contains some lovely references to her earlier cases. The story begins with Gwenda Reed, a young woman who has recently arrived in England fr...

I read Endless Night by Agatha Christie as part of the Read Christie 2026 challenge. The overall theme of this year's challenge is “Biggest, Best and Beloved,” and September's theme was “Best According to Agatha.” Endless Night was the official choice because Christie herself named it as her own favourite at the time when she was asked about her favourite books. She also wrote it incredibly quickly, finishing the novel in only six weeks rather than the three or four months she usually spent writing a book. I gave it four stars. This is a very interesting Christie novel because it does not initially feel much like a mystery at all. In fact, it reminded me quite a bit of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which I also read for this challenge earlier this year. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd comes from much earlier in Christie's career, while Endless Night was published in 1967, but both play with perspective and with what we assume about a story simply because of the person telli...

I read By the Pricking of My Thumbs for the August theme of the 2026 Agatha Christie Reading Challenge, which was Best Duo. I have read some of their earlier adventures and I generally enjoy them as a pair, so I was happy to return to them here. Unfortunately, while I still liked spending time with Tommy and Tuppence, the mystery itself ended up being one of the weaker Agatha Christie stories I have read. This is a later Tommy and Tuppence novel, with the couple now considerably older. The story begins when they visit Tommy’s elderly Aunt Ada at the nursing home where she lives. While there, Tuppence meets another resident, Mrs Lancaster, who asks her a very strange question about whether she has lost a child. It is one of those wonderfully unsettling little moments that immediately suggests something much darker is hiding underneath the perfectly ordinary surroundings. Not long afterwards, Aunt Ada dies, and Tommy and Tuppence discover that Mrs Lancaster had given her a painting befo...

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 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 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 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 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...

I read Mrs McGinty's Dead by Agatha Christie as the February pick for my 2026 Agatha Christie Reading Challenge , and I was genuinely excited going in. It is a Poirot novel, and unlike some of the earlier ones, he is present from the very beginning and remains at the centre of the story. No dramatic last chapter entrance. No five minute cameo. This is Poirot throughout. And yet… it left me oddly unmoved. The premise is simple and strong. An elderly charwoman, Mrs McGinty, is brutally murdered in a small English village. Her lodger has already been tried and sentenced to death. The case is, officially, closed. But Superintendent Spence, the very man who oversaw the investigation, is uneasy. Not because of a missing clue or a procedural mistake, but simply because he does not believe the condemned man is a killer. That instinct alone sends Poirot, bored and restless in retirement, into the village to dig up the truth. It is a classic Christie setup: a tight community, polite façad...

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie was the January pick for the Read Christie 2026 challenge , and I listened to it as an audiobook. Written in 1942, right in the middle of the Second World War , it is quietly interesting that both major television adaptations relocate the story to the post-war period. I have seen the Agatha Christie's Marple adaptation and loved the bold change it makes, even though it is unmistakably a change. I will not spoil it here, but it works better than one might expect. This has long been one of my favourite Miss Marple adaptations, and the challenge conveniently nudged me into finally reading it, even though this was not a year I originally planned to commit to another Christie challenge. The novel itself is short and tightly constructed, which means very little was lost in adaptation. In fact, this is one of those rare Christie stories where the screen versions stay remarkably close to the book. Aside from that one substantial alteration in ...