Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie

 

This adorable facsimile edition of Agatha Christie wasn’t part of my reading plan this month, but having read quite a lot of harrowing novels lately I wanted a good ol’ murder mystery to sink my teeth into. The book is typical Christie - it begins with a hostel of diverse students, and their belongings have been going missing lately without explanation. When one of the unassuming students confesses to the theft, and then mysteriously kills herself, Hercule Poirot is on hand to delve deeper and uncover the truth about her death. A number of murders later, the culprit is finally discovered!

This was by no stretch of the imagination what I’d call a brilliant story, but it was a good yarn and had some amusing moments. The more critical I become as a reader, the more I can’t help but notice the problematic content of older texts like this. There were perhaps more racist and sexist moments in this book than the other Christie’s I’ve read, which wasn’t great - as mentioned previously, I don’t think we should stop reading older books, but just be aware of the problematic content and mindful of how far we’ve come as a society (with still such a long way to go!).

One thing’s for sure though, Christie certainly knows how to leave you stumped with no idea who the murderer could be, and finally reveals the culprit in a very clever and shocking way. I’ll never tire of reading her novels, each of which are so different!