Hello Everyone!
Today I have a quick review of The Hollow by Agatha Christie.
Title: The Hollow
Author: Agatha Christie
Genre: Mystery
Age Category: Adult
Publication Date: January 1, 1946
Number of Pages: 299 Pages
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Lady Angkatell, intrigued by the criminal mind, has invited Hercule Poirot to her estate for a weekend house party. The Belgian detective’s arrival at the Hollow is met with an elaborate tableau staged for his amusement: a doctor lies in a puddle of red paint, his timid wife stands over his body with a gun while the other guests look suitably shocked. But this is no charade. The paint is blood and the corpse real!
As a lot of you may know, I’m slowly making my way through all of the Poirot books by Agatha Christie. While I thought The Hollow had some fun twists and turns, it certainly was not one of my favourite stories featuring Mr. Poirot.
I enjoyed the setting of this story. I like it when Poirot stories are set at country homes or estates. I find the setting to be charming and I like that it really narrows down the suspect pool while also allowing for the possibility of an outside entity to be involved.
I found most of the characters in this book to be unlikable. Jealousy played a big role in this story and it negatively impacted my feelings towards most of the characters. I did find Lady Angkatell to be amusing though, with her rambling and jumping from one topic to another.
I think I would have enjoyed this story more if Poirot played a bigger role. Poirot doesn’t appear until the murder has already taken place. He doesn’t really spend much time with the characters, he’s barely involved with the official investigation, and he plays a minor role in this one. His lack of involvement made it feel like something was missing from the story.
I enjoyed the twists and turns in this story. There were lots of clues that completely flipped the investigation in another direction. I suspected pretty much every character, excerpt for one, as the story progressed.
One last thing that I want to note is this book does have some offensive language and terms in it. There were at least three instances, that I can recall as I’m writing this, where offensive language and terms were used.
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I’ve read 2 books by Agatha Christie – The Mysterious Affair at Styles and And Then There Were None. I enjoyed both of them, though there were some derogatory terms and language in both.
[…] Review – The Hollow by Agatha Christie […]
I have noted the random derogatory terms thrown in here and there and it does hamper the general enjoyment. Apart from that, detective stories featuring a limited set of suspects in an isolated setting is an element I like. I haven’t read The Hollow yet, although I did watch an adaptation and didn’t find it particularly memorable. However, this review was surely insightful.