Rating: 
Summary: Very good, but....
Review: OOh, this is actually a very good book to read. I have to agree with some other readers that the book started off very slow. What I like about the book, however, is that Agatha Christie used a very different approach to write this particular piece of work. Nice job.Hercule Poirot actually isnt the spot light in the story. You will not find the usual Hercule Poirot, who like to use his "grey cell" to put the crime scene back together. If you are looking for a typical Poirot's advanture, you'll be disappointed. =)
Rating: 
Summary: My favorite Poirot
Review: The Hollow is an affecting and taut mystery in which the best of the Poirot novel elements are happily combined. The characters are among her most developed and she does her usual good job of demonstrating the impact of the changing post-war society on their personalities. Their motivations are murky, and none of them are particularly innocent. The moral ambiguity that characterizes this book adds a dose of depth that some of the lesser Christie novels lack.
Also titled as Murder After Hours in some editions. Recommended for Christie fans, or mystery fans new to her work.
Rating:
Summary: The subplots are more affecting than the main storyline.
Review: THE HOLLOW is one of Agatha Christie's best postwar thrillers when she seemed to be trying out a new style of close psychological observation, a very delicate kind of character portrayal that was a carryover from her "straight novels" written under the pseudonym of Mary Westmacott. Another good example of this postwar style would be TAKEN AT THE FLOOD.
I loved the story of Henrietta, one of Christie's few female visual artists, ruthless and driven, like Amyas Crale in FIVE LITTLE PIGS, always sacrificing everything to the good of their art, even their most basic human relationships. Over and over again Christie uses this theme, and I suspect she must have somehow identified herself with this driven artist figure.
The other story that is so appealing is the love story of Midge Hardcastle, the "poor relation" of the Angkatell family, who gets to spend her weekends and holidays at the family mansion, but when the weekend's over, she has to go back to her life of genteel poverty selling clothes for a fashionable modiste who values her only for her society connections. No matter how many times I read THE HOLLOW, my throat clenches up when I reach the richly satisfying end of the book, when poor Midge gets her Cinderella wishes granted. It's very affecting, just like the end of AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN.
Veronica Craye is very good too. Obviously Christie was using the real life Veronica Lake as the model for Craye, just as in the 1960s she used the real life Gene Tierney for the actress in THE MIRROR CRACK'D.
All in all, a book filled with wonderful female characters. Though the men aren't bad either!
| 
