Hallowe'en Party

3.5 stars

I love Agatha Christie but I didn't really liked this novel. The begining of it was quite interesting, as it described classic Halloween parties, but the story seemed to drag on for too long.

I was hoping for a more interesting read but unfortunately, this one did not captivate me as some of her other work did.

I will try to re-read it when I'm not in the midst of uni homework and midterm exams to see if it was my tiredness that got in the way of enjoying this.

This is the only story written by Agatha Christie that I have read. I had guessed 2 possible murderers from the beginning, and though many other characters were introduced afterwards and threw me off the scent a couple of times, I narrowed it down to one and I was correct. However, I was totally off on the manner in which it occurred and the reason it happened at all. Though some parts seemed to drag a bit, I enjoyed my intro to AC. It was a lot of fun guessing who the murderer might be, and I especially loved the timing of this book club pick - perfect for the upcoming Halloween festivities!

This book started out SO WONDERFULLY and I was convinced it was going to be among my top favorites of Christie's. Unfortunately, the mystery lost steam and became a hopeless tangle of interconnected subplots that were somehow wrapped up neatly in one quick debriefing sesh with Poirot. Such is the wont of Christie's subplots, I suppose.

This mystery seemed a bit darker than those Poirot usually handles, perhaps because it involved the death of a child. That sort of cast a pall over the first few chapters and made it nice and Halloweeny, but that feeling dissipated over time and I was left feeling mainly confused and relieved that I finally had my answer. I was also glad that my stab-in-the-dark guess at the murderer turned out to be correct but I had no real basis for my beliefs and still probably could not explain everything that happened at the end.