Tag: fiction
Sliver by Ira Levin – Book Review
Sliver is one of Ira Levin’s lesser-known and perhaps lesser novels, but there are plenty of reasons why I keep coming back to it when I want a quick and easy re-read. It’s amazing to think that this tense thriller was written before the explosion of reality TV and modern day anxieties about video surveillance and privacy.
Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie – Book Review
This collection of short stories, first published in 1924 and featuring Christie’s own Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, may not be as satisfying as Christie’s Poirot novels, but it showcases the future Queen of Crime honing her craft.
After the Funeral by Agatha Christie – Book Review
One of my personal favourites, After the Funeral may not have the sort of shocking and daring high-concept solution that marks Christie’s most popular novels, but for me it’s simply a great example of the Queen of Crime excelling at her craft.
They Do It With Mirrors by Agatha Christie – Book Review
An earlier Miss Marple mystery that I pretty much completely forgot. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, but there’s also little to make it stand out in the series with so many memorable entries. It could unkindly be called Christie-by-numbers.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro – Book Review
Another sublime novel from one of my all-time favourite authors, Klara and the Sun could be seen as a companion piece to Ishiguro’s dystopian romance Never Let Me Go, exploring similar themes of love, the danger of unchecked technological advances, and what it means to be human and not-quite-human.
Miss Marple’s Final Cases by Agatha Christie – Book Review
An enjoyable posthumous short story collection featuring the deductive powers of Christie’s lovable sleuth, plus two additional supernatural stories.
A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie – Book Review
This Miss Marple novel has many Christie tropes that I usually find very entertaining, among them a bickering family where everyone has a motive to bump off the detestable patriarch in charge, and murders that follow a nursery rhyme. On the whole though, the book just wasn’t as satisfying as some of its parts.
Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie – Book Review
This solid Poirot mystery has the prettiest title of all Christie novels, which I didn’t realise was borrowed from an equally beautiful passage from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty – Book Review
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