The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

5 stars
Poirot book 4

FINALLY!  A Poirot I can honestly say I loved.  :)

Told in first person, but from a completely new narrator, I'm happy to say Hastings is nowhere in sight.  Hallelujah.

Anyway, I really really liked this one.  Obviously.

This is a great mystery and if you only read one Poirot, it should probably be this one.  Seriously, skip 1, 2, and 3 and just go with this.

The only tragedy-- Pierre Bayard's book Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? is not available in my library system nor can they get it through inter-library loan.  Very very sad.

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie

3 stars
short story collection

Sigh.

I've mentioned that Hastings is an idiot, right?

And that Poirot is arrogant and annoying?

Yeah.

Some of these stories worked for me and some drove me nuts.

Overall, I'm tiring of Poirot.  I need to try some of the later ones when Hastings is out of the picture.

Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

4 stars
R- 1

Hastings is still an idiot.

Poirot is still arrogant and annoying.

And this one drove me NUTS for quite a while.

In the end, though, I ended up enjoying the mystery far more than I expected to.

Which is more than I can say for any of the other Poirots I've read so far.  Granted, I've only read a few of them, but oh my gosh.

I think I need to give up on reading them in order.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

3 stars
Poirot, book 1

So, I wanted to love this.

And there is undeniably a charm to any Agatha Christie.

But... sigh.  This one didn't do it for me so much.  It was fine, but Hastings got annoying and the whole plot just felt a little too convoluted.

I'm told they get better, and a lot of the issues did seem like first novel issues, so I'm sure they do.  Certainly I've loved her Tommy and Tuppence books and the stand-alones I've read.

If nothing else, though, it's a good read to see how it all got started. :)