As a lover of Agatha Christie, I’m always intrigues but wary when modern writers take on her characters. I did buy a copy of Sophie Hannah’s first Poirot novel The Monogram Murders but didn’t get very far with it. No matter how good a writer is, they’ll never be able to emulate the Queen of Crime herself. Christie was an incredibly talented writer who understood people and behaviour. She’s also incredibly shrewd but still massively underrated. So, it feels as though many contemporary writers think it’s easy to write an Agatha Christie novel. It’s actually not easy to write like Agatha Christie. She just makes it seem easy. It also doesn’t help that crime fiction is so oversaturated these days that people think the solutions are obvious. When, in fact, people have just used her plots again and again, so they’re familiar. It’s why I’m not a fan of a lot of crime fiction these days. It just feels so familiar. So, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this collection. I wanted to read it but was worried about how it would tur out. That’s why it took me so long to pick it up.
Yipee ki-yay, motherbooker 