I am reading through the novels of Agatha Christie in the order in which they were written and writing a review on each one.
The Thirteen Problems
1932
Description
The Tuesday Night Club is a venue where locals challenge Miss Marple to solve recent crimes…
One Tuesday evening a group gathers at Miss Marple’s house and the conversation turns to unsolved crimes…
The case of the disappearing bloodstains; the thief who committed his crime twice over; the message on the death-bed of a poisoned man which read ‘heap of fish’; the strange case of the invisible will; a spiritualist who warned that ‘Blue Geranium’ meant death…
My Thoughts
This is the 16th book by Agatha Christie and the 2nd Miss Marple Mystery.
It is a book of short stories with the following titles:
The
Tuesday Night Club
The Idol
House of Astarte
Ingots of
Gold
The
Bloodstained Pavement
Motive v
Opportunity
The Thumb
Mark of St. Peter
The Blue
Geranium
The
Companion
The Four
Suspects
A
Christmas Tragedy
The Herb
of Death
The Affair
at the Bungalow
Death by Drowning
The first story sets the scene for the rest - there are a certain group of people gathered together in a relaxed atmosphere who each present a mystery and the others are to suggest the solution to this mystery.
Miss Marple's nephew features here along with some others who may or may not appear in further books.
Miss Marple may seem like the one who would have the least experience of the "big bad world" but she is in fact the one who has seen many things in her small village and thus is the one who can provide the solutions.
Some of the short stories here have actually later been used as the ideas for other Christie stories.
As much as I enjoy a full story where the reader has to read carefully and uncover all the clues hidden within to solve the crime at times I really do enjoy a group of short stories like this to read. Somewhat like enjoying a cryptic crossword puzzle because each correct answer written into the puzzle brings a sense of satisfaction itself.
Or perhaps these short stories are just a series of quick fixes for us mystery lovers.
A good read with such a varied group of stories.
Also a good start for someone to get introduced to the books of Agatha Christie.
Here is a link to a list of her novels on Amazon
Books by Agatha Christie