Dear Reader,
Thank you for being so patient with me during my radio silence. Thank you so much for your kind comments, messages and the warm thoughts you’ve sent my way about my cancer diagnosis. You can’t possibly understand how much your kind words have benefited me greatly. While I’m not sure I’ll ever be interested in talking in great detail about my cancer, I am on a treatment plan. However, I am terrified to jinx myself, so I’d rather stay quiet about it, at least for now.
It is important for me to keep my Substack a space where you and I can come here for fun, upbeat and interesting reading and conversation, which has always been my intention from the start. So please rest assured, that this space won’t become a downer for you.
As you can probably imagine my reading in recent months has been scarce, but I thought it would still be fun to share with you what little I’ve been reading and you could share with me what you’ve been up to, what you’ve been reading, what you’ve been watching and/or listening to.
Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie is a Poirot novel published in 1956. This book was a fun read and was my introduction to Poirot’s writer friend, Ariadne Oliver, who I believe is based on Agatha Christie herself. The story is set in a grand country estate (of course) and takes place over a weekend of murder mystery fun. A young local is hired to play the “corpse” when unfortunately she is killed. I won’t say anymore, so I don’t give away too much, but it made for some fun reading. I never did guess who the killer was and there were so many clues I missed.
I also read the novel Look to the Lady by Margery Allingham (1931). I thought I would like this book because it involves a stolen ancient chalice. While it’s an excellent story with a methodically planned-out plot, I felt lost most of the time. There are too many characters to keep track of and I sort of ended up losing interest. I should have kept a spreadsheet of who is who. Which I may do next time I come across a mystery novel filled to the brim with characters.
The rest of the time, I read short detective stories, most of them the early Miss Marple stories by Agatha Christie.
“Have You Got Everything You Want?” (1933, Parker Pyne mystery) by Agatha Christie is set on the Orient Express. I love that this story was Christie’s initial experimentation with a story set onboard this fabled train.
“The Last Séance” (1926 US, 1927 UK) by Agatha Christie, is set in France at the tail end of the 1800s and is quite literally a killer story. It’s set in a grand Parisian apartment during a séance. If you’re going to read one of the short stories listed here today, it should be this one. I’d classify this as a ghost story as it left chills down my spine. Though it did end rather abruptly and I wish it had more of a finale that tied up a few loose ends.
The Miss Marple short stories by Agatha Christie are exceptionally fun. They take place at a dinner party every Tuesday, where each story features one guest taking a turn telling a mystery story.
“The Tuesday Night Club” (1927)
“The Thumb Mark of St. Peter” (1928)
“The Affair at the Bungalow” (1930)
"The Blue Geranium” (1932)
“The Companion” (1932)
Have you read any of these novels or short stories?
As always, thank you so much for being here and reading. I’ll be back soon.
Have a wonderful rest of your week.
I forgot to add that I also read a 1972 short story by Margery Allingham titled, "The Unseen Door." It's a super short read and was my first introduction to Albert Campion.
I'm glad to hear you're on a treatment plan and hope it's going well! Please don't worry about being a downer - you're under no obligation to keep cheery through all this for our entertainment (though if it helps you, then I'm glad). 🖤
I've never actually read any Agatha Christie, though I've watched the recent Poirot film adaptations and enjoyed those, so perhaps I should. When it comes to mystery novels I'm more of a Sherlock girl. Which reminds me, I wrote about the Hound of the Baskervilles for an essay during my MA and I'd quite like to adapt it into a Ligaments post at some point!