Reviews with content warning for Murder - Closed Casket

Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Closed Casket by Agatha Christie, Sophie Hannah

5 reviews

jdcorley's review against another edition

challenging mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Hannah improves on her previous Poirot outing with a more Christie-esque cast of characters and setting. A good Poirot suspect must be at least a little Dickensian - that is, they must have a big, theatrical front and unknown, baroque secrets hiding behind it. Two of our suspects, a flamboyantly loathsome couple, are absolute marvels of this. You hate the more every time they open their mouths, but you can't help but suspect that it isn't they, but the "nice" characters, who are truly the lead suspects. In this, the cast of characters is at least as memorable as anything Christie ever did.

When Poirot is on the scene from the beginning, of course, there must be twists and turns enough to keep him guessing - what Hannah achieves here is to give the reader enough information, through the redoubtable Catchpool (I actually think Inspector Catchpool may be more interesting as a second to Poirot than Col. Hastings was), that we can almost, almost, almost follow where Poirot is going. The things Poirot chooses to follow up on also gives us more ideas and speculation, until we are right on his heels straight to the end.

Content Warnings