The Hollow

Classic Agatha Christie novel. Can finish in one single sitting. I did not remember reading this earlier (even though I definitely had). Wonderful setting, characters felt more compelling, and Poirot as usual, felt quite like an amiable yet irritating uncle. Comfortable read. Christie books always feel like coming home to have my favorite dinner from childhood (does that make me a creep?)

Pretty fun reading this one again. This one concentrated a lot more on the politics and relationship dynamics between the characters, but that's fine. I was definitely also slightly annoyed by everyone's fixation on the doctor at the center of the mystery here, Dr John Cristow. He didn't really feel like all that, but for some reason he had not one but three women trailing after him, at least two of which were intelligent and certainly out of his league.

Anyway, it made for an entertaining read but I find that I enjoy Christie's works where the mystery is more of a structured puzzle, aka And Then There Were None or Five Little Pigs. This one was definitely not within that category, but it was OK.

I did also kind of enjoy how there was a bit more focus on the romantic development of two characters which made for a pretty satisfactory ending.

Overall, decent fun and a serviceable mystery. Not one I'd recommend as a starting point to Christie, for sure, but definitely a good one for when you just need a bit of a Christie fix.

Its a good book, in my opinion all of Agatha christies books are amazing, just the two things that knock the two stars off are:

1: It was super easy to figure out the killer right at the start

2: Poirot was barely solving the case some other bloke was doing most the work

overall its not too confusing and its quite good thats why it was three stars

I have been reading all of Christie's mysteries in chronological order and I am starting to wish I wasn't... I am starting to see patterns in her plots. The only problem is as soon as I finish one I want to pick up the next!

As for this book, if you have read as many of her books as I have you will guess who did it as soon as the murder happens, which in this book takes a while. I always recommend not to read the the book's description...sometimes it is just as much fun to guess who gets murdered as it is to guess who did it!

I found Christie's comment that she ruined the book by introducing Poirot funny because it truly could have been a standalone. But it was also nice to have Poirot in more of a background role.

Overall, the best thing about this one is the character development. I enjoyed reading their different perspectives. But the plot was a bit thin. With Christie I think it goes one way or the other.