365 Film Challenge Part 28: Mystery Special

Film #97: Murder Most Foul I've never been a massive fan of Miss Marple, I've always preferred Poirot as a character. This 1964 big screen outing is possibly my favourite Marple adaptation I've seen mainly because Margaret Rutherford's performance is totally different. She's a more bullish, louder take on the character, while still keeping the …

Favourite Books of 2019

That time of year again, where I do my list of best books and movies. As usual, I've split my favourite books into fiction and nonfiction. Let's crack on. Nonfiction 5. Jump! by Daniel Engber Engber's short book is about the attempts to create parachutes as aviation began to take off (pun intended). He captures a …

Book Review: Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

After Murder on the Orient Express, this is probably Hercule Poirot's most famous case and further evidence that travelling with the Belgian sleuth is inadvisable. Fellow passengers on trains and planes have bought the farm while travelling with Poirot, and here death visits while he's on a Nile cruise. Poirot is in Egypt for a …

Book Review: Miss Marple’s Final Cases and Two Other Stories by Agatha Christie

Having recently been won over by Agatha Christie, I decided to tackle my least favourite of her characters, Miss Marple. I've seen TV adaptations of some of the books and while Christie herself favoured Marple, I'm not a fan. She just seems like a bit of a stuck up busybody, and any murderer she was …

Book Review: Partners in Crime by Agatha Christie

I'd quite enjoyed the introduction of Christie's crime-fighting duo Tommy and Tuppence in The Secret Adversary, and having got into Christie's other writings recently, decided to pick up this collection of their continuing adventures. Now married, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford are approached by their old government agent friend Mr Carter to assist in a new …

Book Review: Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie

Never travel with Hercule Poirot. Boats, trains and planes, none are safe when the Belgian detective is aboard. Here he's flying from Paris to Croydon when one of the other passengers is bumped off. The first class passengers are all suspects but none seem to have much motive. And as the victim was seemingly killed …

Book Review: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

I've read a few of Christie's Poirot stories before and while diverting enough, wasn't overly impressed. I found the stories to be inferior versions of Sherlock Holmes and didn't much like the narraror Hastings. Luckily in this book, Hastings is not the narrator and the book works better for it. Hercule Poirot, the renowned Belgian …

Book Review: The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

I've never been much of an Agatha Christie fan, this is only the second of her books I've read (my thoughts on the first are here) and I must say I enjoyed this a whole lot. Set between the wars this follows friends Tommy and Tuppence, who decide to set up a company to look …

Book Review: Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is apparently the highest selling author of all time, having churned out quite a few books which continue to be widely read today. My Dad and big sister are big fans, but I've never read any of her stuff before. The reason I've never been tempted to try is because of the television …