Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - The Hollow

In many ways, this is a book just like many of the other Agatha Christie's I've read. The murder occurs, the misdirections keep coming your way, and in the end you have no idea who actually murdered whom so you patiently wait for M. Poirot to tell you the who, why and how of it all. This story changes things up a bit, however: not only do we spend a significant portion of the book with the characters before anyone gets killed, but the conclusion of it all isn't Hercule Poirot standing in front of the suspects and kicking off his spiel, like so many of Christie's other stories. It is a bit of a sad ending, but to keep this a spoiler-free review, that's all I'll say.

I enjoyed getting to know our characters before the mystery kicked in, and it works quite well because these odd characters need some introduction to be able to understand their reasoning as the reader. My only complaint is that as a whole, this book feels quite slow, while I prefer somewhat quicker paced stories when reading mystery novels. I didn't feel much, if any, tension during this book, but rather I felt for the characters and their relationships. I've never really come out of a Christie novel rooting for the relationship of two fictional people, but that definitely happened here.

Overall, I would recommend this novel if you don't mind a bit more character based, slower paced mystery.

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sheryl_reads's review against another edition

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mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This was my first Agatha Christie novel - I went in expecting a detective mystery and I wasn’t disappointed!

The Hollow is fairly short, so it’s a good place to start I think. It’s a Hercule Poirot story, but he doesn’t appear til quite far in! It’s a murder mystery and, of course, Poirot gets to the bottom of it!

The end was definitely unexpected, it kept me guessing the whole way through, and the pacing and writing were very good.

As I expected, the story was a little ‘jolly hockey sticks’ - full of upper class British people who don’t have jobs, and who inherit estates and don’t know what to do with themselves. However, unlike some older stories like that, the characters weren’t boring and I didn’t find myself getting frustrated by them.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one and I’ll be reading more Christie over the year. I give it 3 ⭐️ - a very enjoyable read.

I will put a caveat on this however. There is language and descriptions within the book that are offensive. The books are older and I’ve no doubt it’s in keeping with other books of the period, but it does warrant mentioning it. I found it very jarring and it’s definitely something to be aware of before reading.

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