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eliza_beth1's review
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
rebeccasreadingrambles's review against another edition
2.0
It pains me to give a Christie book such a low rating, but this is my least favorite of all so far. Not only was it the slowest moving story, but I also felt like nothing was actually accomplished or resolved. The story just went around in circles and then all of a sudden it was over. I'm still confused about much of the stuff that happened. I had a lot of trouble paying attention and had to go back and re-read many passages that I had zoned out of. Though T&T are not my favorite AC characters, this novel was by far the worst.
hanej24's review against another edition
4.0
(3.5* really) If you've read all the Tommy and Tuppence books before reading this one it's a nice goodbye to them, however it's not got quite the action and speed of their previous adventures. There seemed to be some information repeated quite a bit via interviews with characters which then didn't go anywhere, and the mystery itself was quite small in the end and was mainly solved in the last hundred pages meaning the beginning dragged. However if you're fond of the couple and some of the other characters in the books, like their children and Albert, it's a nice little story, it could probably have been a bit shorter and still worked as a mystery though.
thenovelbook's review against another edition
1.0
Oh dear. This was actually abysmal… Agatha Christie’s last and worst book. See my review of Elephants Can Remember for a deeper dive (the prevailing theory is that she was developing dementia while writing her late-career books). This one is rambling, soooo long, very vague, and very unconvincing in every way.
Here’s a sample:
“If I said there was something that happened years ago that might result in something being known that would be—possibly—interesting nowadays, sometimes that would give one a bit of information about things that might be going on nowadays, that might be true enough.”
That’s… yeah, how you feel reading that sentence gives you a pretty good idea of how you feel reading this book. It’s so sad! Our poor Agatha.
This is why, in my quest to read all of Agatha Christie’s books, I decided to start stacking these late ones together and get them out of the way, so that I can now return to her earlier stuff! I didn’t want to finish my canonical reading on such a sad note. Back to the fun ones I go!
Here’s a sample:
“If I said there was something that happened years ago that might result in something being known that would be—possibly—interesting nowadays, sometimes that would give one a bit of information about things that might be going on nowadays, that might be true enough.”
That’s… yeah, how you feel reading that sentence gives you a pretty good idea of how you feel reading this book. It’s so sad! Our poor Agatha.
This is why, in my quest to read all of Agatha Christie’s books, I decided to start stacking these late ones together and get them out of the way, so that I can now return to her earlier stuff! I didn’t want to finish my canonical reading on such a sad note. Back to the fun ones I go!
outcolder's review against another edition
3.0
Plot was nonsense, but that hardly matters when so very little of it made sense anyway. Tommy and Tuppence are in their 70s, which makes it all the more weirder and funny when she goes riding on some kind of broken bicycle-horse contraption downhill to crash into a kind of tree called a monkey puzzle... over and over and over again. What! Supposedly they are looking for documents hidden in their country home, but various hiding places are strongly telegraphed but then never explored. Other mysteries, like why the garden shed is called KK are mused over but never explained. Mobs of children and senior citizens make for some stressful comedy and a few chapters featuring a nearly-talking dog — if he could speak, he would say... kind of thing — adds to a kind of dreamlike atmosphere. Christie’s last? book so some of the forgetfulness of “Elephants Never Forget” is probably part of the mood here, a mood that seems to gently dissolve from something like Hitchcock’s Birds into something like bingo night in the palliative care ward. Not “so bad it’s good,” more like, “so demented it’s art.”
symph_adventures's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
bungadinding's review against another edition
2.0
Ngga fokus banget baca ini 😵 Awalnya bertanya-tanya apakah karena terjemahannya kurang enak dibaca atau kenapa. Eh setelah mencari tahu, ternyata ini buku terakhir yang ditulis Agatha Christie menjelang beliau tutup usia, saat beliau sudah mengalami penurunan mental. It's an okay book, asalkan ngga usah terlalu dipikir kalau plotnya berantakan, dialognya repetitif dan boring. Hannibal the dog saves the day 🐕
hidingzeus's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.0
Tommy and Tuppence and Hannibal are heroes! I genuinely loved this one. And the fact that the dog is the hero of the hour made it all the better!
smartinez9's review against another edition
3.0
More sprawling than her usual fare—quite vague, but with flashes of brilliance, and overall very suggestive. Very interesting what she chose to focus on and managed to execute well (characterization) while her acuity and usual organization was declining.