≡ Download Gratis The Mystery of Three Quarters The New Hercule Poirot Mystery Hercule Poirot Mysteries Sophie Hannah 9780062792341 Books

The Mystery of Three Quarters The New Hercule Poirot Mystery Hercule Poirot Mysteries Sophie Hannah 9780062792341 Books

Download As PDF : The Mystery of Three Quarters The New Hercule Poirot Mystery Hercule Poirot Mysteries Sophie Hannah 9780062792341 Books

The Mystery of Three Quarters The New Hercule Poirot Mystery Hercule Poirot Mysteries Sophie Hannah 9780062792341 Books

Agatha Christie's greatest asset as a mystery writer was her ability to devise brilliant but concise plots. You could give the solution to her most brilliant puzzles--- say, "Death on the Nile," "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," "Murder in Mesopotamia", "The ABC Murders", "Sleeping Murder"--- in one or two sentences, and they're satisfying when revealed. The reader doesn't feel cheated: All the information was there was all along, and the solution feels clever but simple in retrospect.

This book is the opposite of that. It's rambling and plodding, and its eventual solution is unnecessarily complicated and fundamentally disappointing. The bulk of the book is a tedious slog through interviews that don't go anywhere, failed attempts to liven up flat characters, and unrewarding scenes that don't advance the plot. The suspects have little personality and are unmemorable. Poirot and Catchpool are the usual two-dimensional caricatures, with the latter even more idiotic than usual (being delighted with himself, for example, in referring to a dog's handiwork as its 'paws-iwork').

When Poirot finally gathers the suspect in the drawing room to reveal the solution, it takes 58 pages to get through it. It's not Poirot's long-windness that pads it out; rather, it's the need to explain the convoluted series of events a decade before the start of the plot that are involved in its unraveling. Once everyone's secret pasts have been revealed, the solution to the mystery is uninteresting and unrewarding.

This setup is the same as in Hannah's previous two books, and it wasn't very good then. Improbable relations among characters that were only vaguely hinted at in the story? Check. A past incident more than a decade old that was never revealed but secretly drives the plot? Check. A key plot point being a conversation that was overheard but misinterpreted? Check. There's little point to reading this book if you read either of the last two books; they're pretty much the same. If you haven't read them, try a better author instead.


Tags : The Mystery of Three Quarters: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot Mysteries) [Sophie Hannah] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <strong>The world’s most beloved detective, Hercule Poirot—the legendary star of Agatha Christie’s <em>Murder on the Orient Express</em> and most recently <em>The Monogram Murders</em> and <em>Closed Casket</em>—returns in a stylish,Sophie Hannah,The Mystery of Three Quarters: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot Mysteries),William Morrow,0062792342,Mystery & Detective - General,Detective and mystery fiction,FICTION Mystery & Detective Traditional British,False personation,Great Britain - Officials and employees,Historical fiction,Letters,London (England),London (England);Fiction.,Nineteen thirties,Nineteen thirties;Fiction.,Poirot, Hercule,Police - England,Private investigators,Private investigators;Belgium;Fiction.,ENGLISH HISTORICAL FICTION,ENGLISH MYSTERY & SUSPENSE FICTION,England,FICTION Mystery & Detective General,FICTION Mystery & Detective Historical,FICTION Mystery & Detective Private Investigators,FICTION Mystery & Detective Traditional,Fiction,Fiction-Mystery & Detective,FictionMystery & Detective - Historical,FictionMystery & Detective - Private Investigators,FictionMystery & Detective - Traditional,GENERAL,General Adult,Great Britain - Officials and employees,Historical fiction,Letters,London (England),London (England);Fiction.,Monograph Series, any,Mystery & Detective - General,MysterySuspense,Nineteen thirties,Nineteen thirties;Fiction.,Poirot, Hercule,Police - England,Private investigators,Private investigators;Belgium;Fiction.,United States,FICTION Mystery & Detective General,FICTION Mystery & Detective Historical,FICTION Mystery & Detective Private Investigators,FICTION Mystery & Detective Traditional,FictionMystery & Detective - Historical,FictionMystery & Detective - Private Investigators,FictionMystery & Detective - Traditional,Fiction,MysterySuspense

The Mystery of Three Quarters The New Hercule Poirot Mystery Hercule Poirot Mysteries Sophie Hannah 9780062792341 Books Reviews

Sophie Hannah’s third installment of the “new” Hercule Poirot mysteries, finds the Belgian detective grappling with fraudulent letters and a wealthy patriarch’s suspicious murder.
When an irate Sylvia Rule arrives on Hercule Poirot’s doorstep, alleging he has accused her (in a letter) of murdering Barnabas Pandy, Poirot is at a loss, for he has never met Sylvia Rule, nor the subject of the supposed letters, Barnabas Pandy. After unsuccessfully convincing Rule of his innocence, he finds a second stranger inside his home,John McCrodden, alleging he too has received a letter from Poirot, accusing him of Barnabas Pandy’s murder.
And so the investigation begins. Who else received these fraudulent letters? Who is Barnabas Pandy, and was he really murdered? Through the eyes of Scotland Yard detective, Edward Catchpool, a mild and likable sidekick (although I miss Hastings), we follow Poirot’s investigation to an English manor house, where a trove of family secrets waits to be unearthed.
I have read all of Agatha Christie’s books, and Sophie Hannah has mastered Hercule Poirot’s diction perfectly, as well as the 1930s English setting. While she isn’t as skilled at plotting (Who is?), her work as the Queen of Mystery’s successor, is good, and I enjoyed this book. Twists and turns abound, some I predicted, some I did not. The murderer’s motive and reasoning was a bit of a stretch, but this is in keeping with many Christie books as well. My other criticism is that the book’s plot, at 344 pages, could have been condensed to 200 pages and told the same story. One of the addictive qualities of Christie’s books is her tight pacing and simple word choice.
I plan to read the next installment.
*On a side note, for anyone interested in the audio version of this book, Julian Rhind-Tutt delivers and excellent performance.
This book is a pallid reminder of what a real Hercule Poirot book should be. Wordy & complicated with too many coincidental connections.
A lover of Christie will be bored out of mind by this effort. Go back and read the real thing!
I enjoyed the previous new Poirot mysteries -- in fact I liked them better than actual Agatha Christie mysteries because they avoided the 'rabbit out of a hat' solutions that Christie wrote. This book, however, was disappointing. As other reviewers have said, it rambles on without the plot advancing very much. But even if it had been more tightly-written, the book still would have left me with a sour taste in my metaphorical mouth. There's no one with whom to sympathize. There are no likable characters, except for Catchpool, who is likable only by virtue of being not-dislikable. Even Poirot, whose eccentricities are usually part of the fun, is a sourpuss who's unhappy that the killer gets life in prison instead of hanging. Well, all right -- the dog is okay. I could sympathize with the dog, being stuck with all those disagreeable humans. I don't know if I'll go for another book, if there is one, in this series. I've re-read the others, enjoying them the second time around. I didn't enjoy this one the *first* time around.
I have read every Christie mystery currently available in the U.S., so I was somewhat skeptical of Sophie Hannah's attempt to duplicate the style and substance of one of my favorite authors. Although Hannah did a good job in her two prior books, this mystery is so difficult to plow through because the dialogue in the initial chapters is boring and the action does not pick up until the second half of the book. In retrospect, Hannah concocted a clever plot but her execution was flawed because all of the suspects are strange and unlikeable people, resulting in the reader not being invested in the outcome. I doubt I would read another book in this series.
Agatha Christie's greatest asset as a mystery writer was her ability to devise brilliant but concise plots. You could give the solution to her most brilliant puzzles--- say, "Death on the Nile," "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd," "Murder in Mesopotamia", "The ABC Murders", "Sleeping Murder"--- in one or two sentences, and they're satisfying when revealed. The reader doesn't feel cheated All the information was there was all along, and the solution feels clever but simple in retrospect.

This book is the opposite of that. It's rambling and plodding, and its eventual solution is unnecessarily complicated and fundamentally disappointing. The bulk of the book is a tedious slog through interviews that don't go anywhere, failed attempts to liven up flat characters, and unrewarding scenes that don't advance the plot. The suspects have little personality and are unmemorable. Poirot and Catchpool are the usual two-dimensional caricatures, with the latter even more idiotic than usual (being delighted with himself, for example, in referring to a dog's handiwork as its 'paws-iwork').

When Poirot finally gathers the suspect in the drawing room to reveal the solution, it takes 58 pages to get through it. It's not Poirot's long-windness that pads it out; rather, it's the need to explain the convoluted series of events a decade before the start of the plot that are involved in its unraveling. Once everyone's secret pasts have been revealed, the solution to the mystery is uninteresting and unrewarding.

This setup is the same as in Hannah's previous two books, and it wasn't very good then. Improbable relations among characters that were only vaguely hinted at in the story? Check. A past incident more than a decade old that was never revealed but secretly drives the plot? Check. A key plot point being a conversation that was overheard but misinterpreted? Check. There's little point to reading this book if you read either of the last two books; they're pretty much the same. If you haven't read them, try a better author instead.