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Post by Claire on Oct 16, 2023 19:56:49 GMT 1
Hi all, just for a change, our Autumn/Halloween group read this year is a non-pony book - the aptly titled Halloween Party by Agatha Christie. If my memory serves me right, Agatha Christie's eponymous hero Hercule Poirot is joined in this book by another one of her favourite characters, crime writer Mrs. Oliver. Also one of my fav characters and I do like it when the pair of them team up! It's an easy book to find, available cheaply all over and can be found in most libraries too. Dicussion in around 2 weeks time.
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Post by susanb on Oct 29, 2023 18:44:54 GMT 1
Finished!
It turns out I had read it previously, which I realized fairly early on 🙄
Still, I never regret time spent with Agatha Christie! I often do reread her books; I think I love her characters even more than the mysteries themselves 😉
Has anyone seen the recent movie based (loosely) on the book? Moving the location to Venice seems absurd….more often than not, a key feature of a Christie plot is that things happen in quite ordinary places, and involve (seemingly) ordinary people.
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Post by Claire on Nov 3, 2023 0:57:16 GMT 1
I enjoyed it. Perhaps not vintage Christie but nevertheless a good read and I love the dynamic between Poirot and Mrs Oliver. A bit of politics in this one too with various characters lamenting that criminals were no longer given strict enough punishment (including the death penalty!) and that they were being let off lightly due to various psychological problems being blamed. One can't help but think that these were Ms. Chritie's own musings, although rather ironically the murderer does in fact turn out to be driven by psychological factors! A slight quibble was that the number of deaths and murders which had taken place in this small village over the years seemed fairly unlikely - although it didn't quite reach the 'Midsomer Murders' level of incredulity! I haven't seen the new film version yet. I'm not a big fan of Kenneth Branagh's Poirot. Can't get past David Suchet for me, although Peter Ustinoff was good fun. I've just looked it up on the Agatha Christie website. As well as being uprooted to Venice, it has also been re-named A Haunting in Venice and is described as a 'supernatural' thriller. Does it actually have supernatural goings on, Susan? That brings me to one of the usual questions I ask on these seasonal group reads. How well do folk think it fit with the Halloween/spooky theme? For me, although it didn't have anything really spooky or supernatural (Christie's novel The Pale Horse does have the spooky factor and would be a great Halloeen read), the fact that it actually centred around a Halloween party did make up for this. I also found the principal murder more hard hitting than her usual ones, being the death of a child.
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Post by darkhorse on Nov 8, 2023 22:17:31 GMT 1
I thought it was a good read for Hallowe'en. I remember a few of those parties myself as a child, especially the apple bobbing a I was hopeless at it (and also the apple and bucket race) I found it a bit dated compared to her earlier books, with the outfits and the bemoaning about how girls weren't lady-like anymore, etc. Agatha Christie must have been quite old when she wrote it because it did come across a bit old person bemoaning the 'youth of today.' I haven't read the book before but I did seem to recognise bits of it so I must have seen the TV adaptation of it in the David Suchet series, which I agree was excellent.
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Post by susanb on Nov 9, 2023 23:07:41 GMT 1
I thought it a good Halloween book too, and I was at a few of those parties myself I was just average at apple bobbing, but yes, always just drenched in the process! I agree, not her best outing, but her work always worth a read. I think, perhaps, it was that there were so many characters, that she didn't get to develop some to any great extent? The writing, the setting and the characters are what bring me back to read Christie again, even when I absolutely know "whodunnit". I think my favorite of all time is At Bertram's Hotel. Re the recent movie...LOL, I haven't seen it, that's why I was asking I wasn't crazy for either of the two previous Branagh outings as Poirot, so I wasn't rushing madly to the cinema to see this one (actually, I caught the two previous when they hit Amazon Prime). There were some years then when the adaptations just NAILED it....Suchet's Poirot, Joan Hickson's Miss Marple, James Warwick and Francesca Annis as Tommy and Tuppence. Not to mention Edward Petherbridge as Dorothy Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey, Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes, Mike Gwilym as Dick Francis's Sid Halley. Ah, those were the days! That said, I, too, have a fondness for a few non-traditional adaptations...the Peter Ustinoff Poirot, the Margaret Rutherford Marple and (brace yourself), the Helen Hayes Marple
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Post by Claire on Nov 20, 2023 11:38:56 GMT 1
Not a big fan of the Joan Hickson Marple for some reason. I preferred the later Julia McKenzie and Geraldine McKeown adaptations. I too liked the Margaret Rutherford Marple, even though she was nothing like the book character! Ah Jeremy Brett as Holmes...now you're talking susan. As you say...nailed it!
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odonna
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Post by odonna on Nov 26, 2023 13:16:07 GMT 1
Just checking in as I haven't been on here for a while. I hope everyone is OK. I'm another big Agatha Christie fan and have read all her books.
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Post by Claire on Nov 28, 2023 21:39:53 GMT 1
Nice to hear from you Odonna, hope you are keeping well. Good to have a few Christie fans on here.
Just to continue the earlier discussion about the latest screen adaptation of the book, I just tried to watch it and I wouldn't recommend it. Quite apart from my dislike of Branagh as Poirot, the character of Mrs. Oliver has been completely transforned, and not in a good way. Instead of the scatterbrained, rather frumpy, loveable eccentric of the book, Oliver is, in this incarnation, a smart, sophisticated woman about town. Dreadful! In fact the whole thing bears little resemblance to a Christie story. It's melodramtic, sensationalised and the acting is pretty awful too. I'm afraid I didn't get very far with it! I may give it another try simply for the purpose of being able to review it properly! It does look gorgeous though (still haven't got to visit Venice yet despite it being on my bucket list for many years).
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