Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, thought provoking, and crative
Review: Although, not the very besy Agatha Cristie book, it was definatly not the worst. You will wonder who the killer is until she tells you. She is a great writer and will always be remembered that way!
Rating:
Summary: Fun Murder Mystery
Review: Ariadne Oliver, a mystery writer, is invited to a Hallowe'en Party in Woodleigh Common, where she is staying with a friend of hers. The local group of children and teenagers are quite excited to have her visiting them, and one child in particular, tells a tall tale about witnessing a murder to impress Ariadne. Well, before you know it, that child is dead. Drowned in the apple bobbing bucket. What was supposed to be good fun has turned into vicious, intentional murder. Now Ariadne has called on her friend, Hercule Poirot, to help solve the mystery, and set everyone in Woodleigh Common's minds at ease.I found this to be a very entertaining mystery. Something perfect to read during the month of October, and maybe even on Halloween, in between those quick trips to the door to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters. Erika Sorocco
Rating: 
Summary: Late vintage Christie.
Review: At the age of 79, when this book was published, Agatha Christie was not capable of producing the tighly-plotted, ingenious puzzle fiction that poured from her pen when she was 39. When one is the world's most published author of all time, however, and when one is still able to hold a pen, the pressure to keep producing yet another 'Christie for Christmas' cannot be discounted. It was to be several years before Agatha Christie's daughter said, 'Now, that is enough, Mum'. This is clearly an elderly author at work here, cunningly presenting characters who are mainly elderly themselves, who can get away lines like, 'You know what young people are like nowadays,' and who tend to end sentences with 'and that sort of thing'. Nevertheless, she provides much of the fun and challenge that you expect in her mystery novels, whatever their date of publication. Her popular creations Hercule Poirot and Ariadne Oliver get yet another airing here, as they investigate the drowning in an apple-bobbing tub of a thirteen-year-old girl at a children's Hallowe'en party, a girl who not long before had boasted that she had once witnessed a murder. Exploring the possibility that the girl were telling the truth, Poirot probes several local deaths and disappearances. Amongst vague and gossipy eldery characters, and unbelievably articulate and poetic adolescents, Poirot makes his way with waxed moustache and patent leather shoes to a solution to the mystery. Agatha Christie repeats many of the tricks she tried in her earlier books. You will find echoes of children's nursery rhymes here and a crime that occurs in a familiar domestic setting. You'll also find an especially lyrical few pages in praise of gardens, mid-way through the novel. Agatha Christie, a garden enthusiast herself, never wrote anything better than these few pages. So expect late vintage Christie here. You may not like the attempt at a nail-biting finish, but you can still respect the author's way of setting up a baffling mystery.
Rating:
Summary: She's still got it
Review: Christie still has it, the ability to bewilder and amaze, at age 79! She shows herself capable of making poignant and truthful observations, throughout the book, about youth, the changing state of society, and of course, the mind of those capable of crime and murder. I am always facinated by the amount of quotable quotes in any Christie novel. It is true that some later Christie novels are not quite as palatable as her earlier work, but this is simply not one of them. As fresh as her first works, with a believable ending and a incredible and intriguing motive for one of her characters, I'm wondering how anyone could read this and not see the value. Christie shines when she takes out Poirot, and the duo of Oliver and Poirot is a treat. The only flaw I see here is Christie's inability to see 'lower class' servants as capable of being worth as much as the upper classes, but she was a Victorian, and raised with prejudice. Still, the continual references in her books to servants who morbidly get excited about death, who are stupidly superstitious, who cannot make inferences, or in short behave like common sheep get to be wearing. Christie is also racist; Frenchwomen, Englishwomen, Americanwomen, and those from the 'colonies' are highly bred and of good bearing, but those from Spain, Italy, and other 'ethnic' countries are too often dismissed in a single sentence and described as having 'a simple good nature and flashing teeth'. Ouch. I won't even go into how she describes Arabics. So long as you can view her work for what it is, a excellently crafted, yet lighthearted murder mystery, written by an Englishwoman born to priviledge, who lived in somewhat of an ivory tower, you will be able to enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing Christie
Review: I am a fan of Christie's, but found this novel a bit of a let-down. It moves at the speed of a turtle in molasses, and though, at the time of writing I have not completed reading the book, the identity of the killer seems obvious (as it did from from the beginning). This is always a bit disappointing; one prefers to be surprised in the end. I feel that her story must have been fairly thin, so she felt the need to fill it up with pointless fillabuster-like dialogue and internal monologue. I would recommend one of her earlier, faster-paced novels instead of this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Clumsy mystery
Review: I certainly haven't read many of Christie's books (only about ten), and although I consider myself a lover of detective stories, I can never figure out who she will choose to be her killer. Every one of her books has stumped me. Except this one. It is so clear who the killer is in this book that, at the critical clue, I actually stopped reading and said to myself, "Is she serious?" I couldn't believe that Dame Agatha had created such a careless mystery. The necessary clues make themselves plainly obvious. Of course I couldn't figure out the whole picture before it was revealed (can anyone?), but I was absolutely certain about whodunnit. Even the character development in this is weak. Usually, she'll give us a couple of really interesting characters to enjoy and take in, but you'll be hard pressed to enjoy anyone other than Poirot and Oliver. Skip this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Perfect for a fall reading, with a bewitching atmosphere.
Review: I feel this is one of Christie's very best, with both Hercule Poirot and Christie's mystery writer Ariadne Oliver adrift in a bizarre, unearthly setting. A perfect book to read as Halloween approaches, it has a truly bewitching feel to it, with a mysterious hanging garden constructed in a quarry as backdrop to the strange goings on. The characters, ranging from slightly odd children to menacing adults, add to the haunted feel of the book. In the midst of it all, Poirot's offended and suspicious air, and Oliver's battiness are quite amusing. Well worth the read. Come September, get yourself a copy of this, and of Tom Tryon's Harvest Home, and have a truly spooky, atmospheric autumn!
Rating:
Summary: Clueless about the book.
Review: I read this book about 20 pages at a time every Sunday. Sunday's aren't exactly my cup of tea. It's the day after the weekend when I'm tired and sleep most of the day. What I read of the book I didn't really enjoy at all. British literature dosn't exactly make much sense to me. I don't understand some of it. Other parts are just so boring that I couldn't even tell you what I was reading. Perfect example: "I am quite sure" said Hercule Poirot". "When a thing arranges itself so, one realizes that it must be so, one only looks for reasons why it should be so. If one does not find the reasons why it should not be so, then one is strengthened in one's opinion." This didn't make a bit of sense to me, and most of the book was like that.
Rating:
Summary: A Nasty Halloween Tale! Awesome!
Review: I think to the reader of Mansion Mysteries this is one of the top novels. It uses a quick wit and an excellent cunning of a killer who kills creatively. Christie is at her best, however, his town visit is long and should be read with some Coke or Barqs Root Beer on a cold winter night. Do Not Read On Halloween, you will miss her point. If you read some reviews, you know what I mean.
Rating:
Summary: A good book, but not one of Agatha Christie's best
Review: I thought that Halloween Party was a very good book. Unfortunately, it started of slow, but it picked up the pace as I started to get to the end of the book. One reason why Agatha Christie is a famous author is because she has great character development in her books, and she expressed her strength in this novel. My favorite detective in Christie's stories' is a man named Hercule Poirot, who was the detective of this story. Christie makes Poirot so good that no real life detective can be anywhere close to as good as Poirot. I found it ironic that there was a character in the story who was also a detective fiction writer, like Christie. The kids try to give the author some ideas for another story. I recommend this book to you if you are a detective fiction fan.
|
