Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

There was no mustard in the office.

A Pocketful of Rye by Agatha Christie

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If you’ve got access to the audiobook of this one, it’s read by Richard E Grant, who’s narrated a handful of the Miss Marple books because of his role in the BBC production of The Moving Finger. He’s not the familiar voice of Hugh Fraser, but he adds his own specific wonderful touches. This is a fun mystery novel because of the dumb and funny curiosity of the potential murder scene. Obviously, the grains of rye in the pocket of the murder victim Mr Rex […]

Interesting Look at Christie During Her Travels with First Husband

The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery by Agatha Christie

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So not too much to say here. I really enjoyed reading this as we follow Christie as she travels around the world. We get to see her real life letters, photos, and other things that were kept that showcased her travels from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Honolulu, Canada, and then back to England. The main reason why I gave this just four stars though is that this just doesn’t have a lot of great insight I think into Christie. We see letters she wrote […]

On this particular evening, however, I had suffered from one of those revulsions that all writers know.

The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

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1960s Agatha Christie is really funny and interesting to me. She’s less concerned with truth about humanity, murder, theft, and all the crimes of her youth. Instead, she begins to wonder about what this new world will reap with its changes in mores and cultural values. People have sex, drugs exist beyond their use in poisons (but still plenty of poisons), and the role of the detective is much much different. In this story, we also get a discussion of feminism of a kind. Specifically […]

You recognized her?

The Underdog and Other Stories by Agatha Christie

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This is a collection of Hercule Poirot stories from 1951 (in the US publication). These are mostly perfectly good stories and of course Poirot is charming as ever. What is mostly clear throughout all of these stories is that Poirot does not lend himself well to stories in general, when compared to the novels. I think this is mostly because he’s not always the center of the novels. His presence is secretive and understated a lot of the time, and then he moves in in […]

A Study in Spoilers

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

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(I realize I’m crossing fictional detective streams here with my review title, but it felt appropriate.) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is often considered one of Agatha Christie’s best novels, and I’ve been excited to get to it as I work my way through all the Poirot novels in order. However, when I started reading it, I realized I was already familiar with the story. While the first two Poirot novels and short story collection are narrated by Poirot’s friend, Captain Hastings, the captain doesn’t […]

“Arrange your ideas. Be methodical. Be orderly. There is the secret of success.” – Not Hastings

The Murder on the Links (Hercule Poirot, #2) by Agatha Christie

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Okay, first of all, Hastings is an *idiot*. I don’t think I quite realized that in the other books I’ve read with him in them. He’s supposedly modeled after Watson from the Sherlock Holmes stories, an audience surrogate character, but Watson gets an unfair rap about his bumbling—a side effect of his characterization on film rather than evidence in the canon—whereas Hastings is genuinely a boob, and one that doesn’t realize the extent of his boobitude. In this one, not only does he get everything […]



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