Saturday

The Secret of Chimneys - Book Review




I am trying to read through the novels of Agatha Christie in the order in which they were written and write a review on each one.


  





The Secret of Chimneys. 

1925.  
A Novel involving Inspector Battle.







Shelfari Description

A bit of adventure and quick cash is all that good-natured drifter Anthony Cade is looking for when he accepts a messenger job from an old friend. It sounds so simple: deliver the provocative memoirs of a recently deceased European count to a London publisher. But the parcel holds more than scandalous royal secrets. It contains a stash of letters that suggest blackmail--and lead to the murder of a stranger who's been shadowing Anthony's every move. Discovering the dead man's identity means retracing his steps--to the rambling estate of Chimneys where darker secrets, and deadlier threats, await anyone who dares to enter.



My Thoughts

This is the sixth book by Agatha Christie.

I read this over a period of weeks and not days so I think that this gives you an immediate indication of how this one did not hook me in quickly.

Overall I found that there seemed to be too many characters for me to keep track of, yet in another way there weren't that many but some seemed too similar or well just confusing me so that when some were mentioned I had to think hard about who it actually was.

Normally I almost visualize the characters I am reading about but in this one this was not the case and having immediately got mixed up between the two guys at the start of the book I think I continued to get mixed up the whole way through.  
Perhaps however a good deal of this was due to not reading this book in consecutive ssessions but picking it up every 3/4 days and not reading too much in each sitting.
Then again maybe this was the way I read it because I was not so interested - not sure which way to fall on this.

The story was a bit far fetched for me, too many leaders/politicians and upperclass talk.

I would liken myself to Lord Catheral who is the owner of the grand house the book is named after when he expressed the desire to get away from all these people because they were not interesting to him and were more of an intrusion in his home, but then to each of them he would be the ever congenial host and friendly Lord.  Yes I was quite happy for the book to be finished and not have to read all the conversations.

Question I have to ask myself is:

Did the fact that it did not have Poirot or Miss Marple affect my enjoyment?









 Here is a link to a list of her novels on Shelfari
Books by Agatha Christie