Girls Being Girls Being Girls Being Girls: The Girls & The River at Night | 2016

The Sum of It:
I'll be honest, it was pretty jarring to spend the first month of 2017 not completely immersed in Agatha Christie. Don't worry - I'm still keeping my Agatha obsession alive by working my way through the Agatha books Emily read without me last year (Seven Dials on Audible is my current favorite!) For the purposes of this post, the first novel I tackled in January was Emma Cline's mesmerizing The Girls, followed quickly by Erica Ferencik's thrilling The River at Night.

After a year of (for the most part) strictly mystery reading, I was interested to start 2017 out without the need to be on the lookout for a killer. The Girls centers around a character named Evie in the present-day, middle-age and 1960s. As a teen, Evie is bright, yet bored. It's summertime and her parents have divorced, she's fallen out with her best friend, and she's desperate for a distraction from her woes. The distraction comes in the form of Suzanne, a total free spirit whose dubious role-model/friend skillz get on super thin ice when she takes Evie to meet all her pals at a not-so-subtle cult meet-up. You can tell even teenage Evie knows this probably won't turn out well, and present-day Evie confirms these suspicions by relating cryptic fragments of her memories of that summer, which include, among other things, memories of #MURDER. While in the end there wasn't really much mystery to the murderS (yes, several #yikes), Cline's enchanting writing held me captive until the very last page...and made me a bit wary of making new friends in the park.

The River at Night is also about female friendship. Protagonist Wini and her group of three other besties are gearing up for their annual girls trip. Instead of a ski vacay or even Disney World, the group is going to go white water rafting in middle-of-nowhere Maine. PAUSE: THIS IS LITERALLY MY NIGHTMARE VACATION SO I WAS IMMEDIATELY TERRIFIED WHEN I READ THIS PART! (#shivers) Wini is a bit apprehensive about this particular excursion, but seeing the vacation as a way to reconnect with her friends, and have a break from her heartbreaking personal life, she acquiesces. While decidedly eerie, the beginning of this story gives the four women an opportunity to air some grievances and share some personal hardships. Even when it's discovered that the "leader" of the group, Pia, mayyyyy have decided to take this irregular trip to hook up with the hot young rapids guide (#partyfoul), it seems like the group might get home at the end of the day with some good campfire tales. BUT THEN THINGS GET REAL. I won't say much more for fear of #spoilers, but suffice it to say, things go from like a bummer, sleeping in the woods isn't the most fun kinda uncomfortable story to a things have gotten REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BAD kind of thriller. This book had me reading with wide eyes and heart pounding.

The YOA Treatment:
Many of the Agatha Christie books we read last year featured strong friendships. Obviously you have the ongoing besties saga of Poirot and Hastings, but her books show many other one-off friendships, particularly those between women, such as the one that develops between Ruth and Lenox in The Mystery of the Blue Train, the delicious Tea & Scandal group from The Murder at the Vicarage, and even tragic friendships like Jacqueline and Linnet in Death on the Nile. I wrote last year about how I appreciated Agatha's treatment of the teenage friendship in Cat Among the Pigeons. Though Emma Cline's meditation on the emotional rollercoaster that is being a teenage girl was much more in-depth than Pigeons, it made me smile to think the girls in both books were essentially from the same time period, and still have the same longings, delights, and frustrations as girls today.  The River at Night's Wini reminded me of Destination Unknown's Hilary Craven: riddled with personal tragedy, but in the end defiantly ready to give life a chance, and do what she must for those she has come to care for.

So far, it's really interesting to dig into new books with the perspective of a steady stream of Agatha having coursed through our eyeballs and ears and brains over the past year. We'll continue to be on the lookout for parallels, recurring concepts, and #spookymoments as we move through more mysteries and thrillers in 2017.

There are more classical detective novels to come for me in February, so stay tuned! And Emily has a terrific review of an entire SERIES of detective novels she has flown through so far this year still to come this week.

Happy reading, friends!

-A.

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Agatha is NOT a Fan of Hipsters: Third Girl | 1966

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"It's the way girls like living now. Better than P.G.s or a hostel. The main girl takes a furnished flat, and then shares out the rent. Second girl is usually a friend. Then they find a third girl by advertising, if they don't know one." - Third Girl, p. 16

The Sum of It: 

Elderly Poirot is relaxing at home of an evening when his butler, George, comes in to let him know that there's a young lady at the door who thinks she might have killed somebody. Normally, Poirot doesn't take walk-ins at midnight, but he is intrigued so George ushers her in. Once she gets there, though, Poirot internally judges her mini-skirt and long, stringy hair and tries to get her to tell him more about this maybe-murder, but then she's like "Sorry, you're too old" (literally) and leaves. 

Given that one of Poirot's chief characteristics is vanity, he sulks about this for a good while, and eventually confesses about it to his bff Ariadne Oliver over hot chocolate, and they decide they should find out who this girl is, because she definitely seemed messed up about something, and after a description, Ariadne realizes she just met this same girl a country house, and moreover that she's the "third girl" in an apartment leased by someone else she is familiar with. 

She and Poirot spend time tracking her down, as well as her "decorative" painter boyfriend who has long hair and skinny velvet pants #HIPSTERS, constantly judging every young person they come across for their dirty appearance. All along, Poirot keeps being like "what we need is a #MURDER" because what he can't figure out is who this girl thinks she killed, exactly. Even once they find her, she seems pretty confused about it, other than a recent maybe-poisoning that happened to her stepmother. Ariadne practices her tracking skills (and gets coshed on the head in the process), Poirot mulls over the same set of facts three or four separate times without result, and they all discover the power of a good hair-do before the mystery is solved. 

The YOA Treatment: 

In this book, Agatha laments the unseemly fashion and grooming habits of the Beat Generation - at one point even referencing the Beatles - while also lamenting how out of time and fashion her own generation (rep. by Poirot, presumably) were becoming. It must have been pretty baffling for someone who grew up in the Victorian era to see kids running around with long, unstyled hair and mini-skirts. Even while she's judging it, she tries to use the lingo of the times, particularly in regards to recreational drugs of the day, allowing several characters to run through long lists of silly-sounding drug names, which feels kind of like hearing your grandmother say "jiggy" #awkward. Also, by the pacing and repetition of much of the narrative, particularly as pertains to Poirot's ongoing internal monologue as we works through the details of the crime, we start to see a bit of the weakness of some of Agatha's later works. 

Though this book isn't bad, it's a bit circular, and takes kind of too long to reach the conclusion, which in the end seems somewhat unrealistic (more so than usual), thought some critics have said that some of the more heavy-handed elements of this novel are purposeful, kind of meta-fiction. Additionally, this book made me really miss Hastings. While Ariadne Oliver has since often been inserted as a bit of a comic foil to Poirot's methodical nature, it's just not the same as the credulous and constantly misguided Hastings. I don't really know why Agatha took him away, other than the fact that we know she got quite over Poirot long before she stopped writing him, and maybe she thought getting rid of Hastings would help put a stop to him. Either way, while Poirot is of course a great creation, I think his character is most fully rounded with Hastings by his side, and his old pal is truly missed in this book. 

- E. 

How Do You Experience Agatha? | Exploring BOOKTRACK!

Happy Thursday, friends!

As we have been making our way through our Year of Agatha project, we have enjoyed experiencing Agatha Christie’s works in various formats. We primarily read hard copy versions of her books, but have dabbled in Kindle and audiobooks as well - we particularly enjoy listening to narration by Hugh Fraser (you might know him as tv’s Hastings alongside David Suchet’s Poirot in the television adaptations of many of Agatha Christie’s works!). Speaking of film, we are also huge fans of many of the Poirot and Marple movies - while obviously not the same as reading her books, many of them are very spot on in their interpretation of the story and are a great way to feel immersed in the Queen of Crime’s world - this project was partly inspired by our love for them!

Thanks to the Year of Agatha, we have come across another way to feel immersed in Agatha Christie. Booktrack is a new, multi-sensory way to experience reading. Guys, it’s straight-up fascinating! Customized sound effects and music are included with eBook versions of books to provide a soundtrack to what you’re reading - and it’s specific down to each page of the story! The good people at Booktrack reached out to us to check out their Agatha Christie Booktracks - The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary. We are both people who like to multi-task while we read and you can usually find us with some sort of music going on in the background, but Booktrack takes this to a new level by pairing the perfect tunes and sounds with just the right moment while we read so we feel like we are smack in the middle the story! We are particularly partial to Tommy & Tuppence’s adventures in The Secret Adversary and loved hearing ominous tones while we followed the Beresfords efforts in trying their hands at spy work. Poirot and Hastings’s country-house party turned #MURDER investigation in The Mysterious Affair at Styles was also so fun to experience with birds chirping as the pair travel around the village in search of clues. Booktrack provides a fascinating way to immerse yourself in some of your favorite books!

The good folks at Booktrack want YOU to enjoy sampling their first two Christie books for free! Here's how:

1) Go to booktrack.com and click "Sign up" to start your account

2) Return to this post and click here to let us know your email address so that we can tell them to drop these two Christie titles in your account for free!

Give these a try and be sure to let us know what you think in the comments section!

Want to learn more about Booktrack in general? Their website and blog have a lot of great information, and be sure to check them out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook!

Many thanks to Booktrack for the collaboration and the opportunity to have a new Agatha Christie experience!

Audrey & Emily

*A version of this blog post originally appeared on booktrackbeat.com - read the original post HERE!

The Girl on the Train: 4.50 from Paddington | 1957

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"True to the precepts handed down to her by her mother and grandmother—to wit: that a true lady can neither be shocked nor surprised—Miss Marple merely raised her eyebrows and shook her head,” - 4.50 from Paddington

The Sum of It:

I have been WAITING FOR AGES for it to be time to read this one, because I love, love, love the "Agatha Christie's Marple" version, and the book totally lived up to it. Eek! Ok, so, summary. 

Miss Marple's friend, Mrs. McGillicuddy, is riding the train to visit her pal after doing some Christmas shopping in London. As she gazes out the window at another train traveling past, well, honestly I want to let Agatha explain it because I was pretty struck with what a beautiful job she does describing the scene, from the motion of the trains to the suddenness of the murder scene: 

"For a time the two trains ran parallel, now one gaining a little, now the other. Mrs. McGillicuddy looked from her window through the windows of the parallel carriages. Most of the blinds were down, but occasionally the occupants of the carriages were visible. The other train was not very full and there were many empty carriages. 

At the moment when the two trains gave the illusion of being stationary, a blind in one of the carriages flew up with a snap. Mrs. McGillicuddy looked into the lighted first-class carriage that was only a few feet away.

Then she drew her breath in with a gasp and half-rose to her feet."

What she saw was a #MURDER taking place in the opposite train! She could only see the back of a man with dark hair as he straight-up strangled the life out of some poor blonde lady in a light-colored fur coat. After she regains her senses, she reports it to the ticket guy, who is like "yeah sure, crazy old lady" but says he'll tell the railroad. When she gets to Miss Marple's house, she is quite shaken up, and Miss Marple insists on some booze to ease her nerves as they discuss. They go to bed, figuring they'll read all about it in the paper the next day, only...crickets. "WTF?!" they say, and go to the police who are like nope, no dead ladies on the train or by the tracks, maybe he was just play-strangling her but really she wasn't dead [sounds like a suggestion a certain presidential candidate might make in a similar circumstance, "Oh what she's fine we were just PLAY strangling" #lockerroom] 

ANYWAYS both Miss M and her pal Mrs. M are kind of distraught because they know it's true. SO Miss Marple rides the train a million times, figures out the only spot a body could have been dumped, then calls up a very clever and resourceful young lady she knows, Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow, and is like "yo, wanna get yourself hired at this big estate so you can help me find a dead body?" Naturally Lucy is like yah that sounds like a blast, I'm in, and gets to work with the Crackenthorpes, a clan of eccentric richies who own the only spot of land where the body could have been tossed. In addition to cooking lots of things, tending to children, and putting up with marriage proposals from literally every single male in the family, she does her assigned detecting and finds the body in an old sarcophagus in a barn. But at that point, the plot only thickens! Who is it? Why she ded? Who did the murdering? Only Lucy, Miss Marple, and Miss Marple's handsome Scotland Yard pal, Inspector Craddock, can figure it out. 

The YOA Treatment:

This one is soooooooooooooo delightful, team. It's been a bit since I've read a truly delightful one (have had some that were adequate, just not like, YAY) and so I really enjoyed 4.50 from Paddington. For one thing, the concept is great. I often look over at people on other subway trains, or in other cabs, and wonder what's going on over there. I love how Agatha sets the scene for a drowsy Mrs. McGillicuddy, just chillin on the train, to all the sudden see something very scary an unexpected. You can almost see her, Ariadne Oliver-style, walking around and thinking to herself about what would happen if you saw someone get murdered on another train and then the police said there was no evidence of a murder on the train when they checked it out. So interesting to consider, and Miss Marple is the best character to just quietly ride the train, trying to figure it out, then enlist some other folks to do the real heavy poking around once she gets the story straight. It is clever, and the plot trips along nicely. 

Another thing I truly love about this story, both in book and television version, is the character of Lucy Eyelesbarrow. In her, Agatha creates a clever and intuitive young lady sleuth, but one who is quite different from the plucky, bon-mot slinging young, Katharine Hepburn-in-Bringing-Up-Baby-style heroines of books like The Secret Adversary, The Man in the Brown Suit, or The Seven Dials Mystery. Lucy is 32, a bit older than these other characters, and though she is bright, attractive, and clever, she's a little more mature and thoughtful in how she goes about things, maybe more of a Hepburn-in-Philadelphia-Story style lady. She manages the home brilliantly, but Agatha also made sure to give her a mathematics degree from Oxford, and she constantly gets proposed to, but seems to mostly just roll her eyes. I really enjoyed reading this character, and how she interacted with the other great characters in the story, of which there are many! The Crackenthorpe family is full of colorful characters, from artistic, Hemingway-style brother Cedric to the cranky family patriarch who is mostly just annoyed that everyone wants his money, and it was lovely to meet all of them and wonder who might be the culprit!

This one is quite clever, mystery-wise, but it's also just a truly enjoyable read. Definitely going on my list of key Agatha's to recommend. Go get a copy! 

- E. 

Miss Lemon Makes an Error : Hickory Dickory Dock | 1955

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“Poirot closed his eyes. What he perceived mentally was a kaleidoscope, no more, no less. Pieces of cut-up scarves and rucksacks, cookery books, lipsticks, bath salts; names and thumbnail sketches of odd students. Nowhere was there cohesion or form. Unrelated incidents and people whirled round in space. But Poirot knew quite well that somehow and somewhere there must be a pattern . . . The question was where to start.. . . .”  - Hickory Dickory Dock

The Sum of It:

It all begins when the ever-efficient and capable Miss Lemon, Poirot's secretary, makes three mistakes in one letter. Miss Lemon never, ever makes mistakes, so Poirot knows something is up. In explaining, she reveals that she has a sister (Poirot is shocked, apparently he thought of Miss Lemon as emerging from a pod or something) and that said sister, Mrs. Hubbard, is presiding over a boarding house occupied by a bunch of students and there has been a shady bit of thievery going on. Miss Lemon's sister is quite concerned, and the students are in a tizzy. Can Poirot help??

The list of missing items is quite troubling to Poirot's orderly mind -- they make no sense! A compact, a diamond ring, electric light bulbs, a stethoscope, boracic powder, and more. Two items have been stolen and destroyed, a silk scarf and a rucksack. The diamond ring has been returned, but other items are still at large. Poirot goes to dinner under the guise of making a little speech about crime solving so he can scope out the situation and get to know the possible culprits. After he has clearly narrowed it down, someone finally confesses -- but only to some of the stolen items. The rest are still a mystery! Everyone is ready to let it go and move on, only the confessor hints that she knows who might have committed some of the other acts #bigmistake #flyyoufools. Predictably, she is quickly found dead, presumably of suicide by morphia poisoning, but everyone soon realizes that it was totes #MURDER. NOW things are really getting interesting!

After two more murders, the discovery of a drug and jewel smuggling ring, at least two engagements, and a lot of pasta consumed, Poirot and Inspector Sharpe (his old pal) realize that more than one of the youths in the house are not what they seem. 

The YOA Treatment:

Can't lie folks, this wasn't my favorite. For one thing, Agatha was getting on up in years at this point, and I think I'm offering that as one excuse for some of the rather unfortunate racial characterizations in the book. Many of the students staying in Mrs. Hubbard's boarding house are from India, Africa, and other non-European nations, and Agatha employed some rather unfortunate descriptive language in illustrating these folks, and allows some of the characters to make some pretty absurd statements about them (for example, when Inspector Sharpe asks one character why she suspects a Mr. Akibombo, she responds "Jealousy. All these coloured people are very jealous of each other and very hysterical." #YIKES #NOTOK) This is really pretty prevalent throughout the book, and put a bad taste in my mouth for the whole thing. While we've seen some of this in previous books, this is the most overt of the ones I've read so far.

Additionally, this is another book that has a TON of characters, and when that happens, unless she's really careful with it, it can get kind of muddled and confusing. There are so many different people here, and while you do get a little attached to some of them, it's hard to keep track when they're constantly being paired up and their descriptions are all over the place. There's also a lot of kind of side-plot crime that makes the overall plot a little hard to stick with, and I just never really got very engaged with it. SORRY AGATHA! I know I've got some good ones coming up. 

- E. 

He is an Englishman: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe | 1940

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"Hercule Poirot remained sipping his chocolate and going over the facts as he had just outlined. He felt satisfied that they were as he had stated them. Within that circle of persons was the hand that had actually done the deed -- no matter whose the inspiration had been. Then his eyebrows shot up as he realized that the list was incomplete. He had left out one name." - One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, p. 89

The Sum of It:
So this one begins in everyone's favorite locale, the dentist's office. Dr. Morel is complaining to his sister that his assistant is out because her aunt had a stroke (#howdareshe) and that he thinks she's lying about it just to go hook up with her boyfriend of whom Dr. Morel does not approve. On this day, Poirot has his regular 6-month dentist appointment and interacts with some other patrons of the establishment as he waits for and then leaves his appointment, including a super scowly but attractive young man (Mr. Raikes), a military man with fabulous mustaches #Poirotmancrush #probably (Colonel Abercrombie), and a shabby, artsy looking lady with fugly buckled shoes (Ms. Mabelle Sainsbury Seale). As Poirot is leaving, this lady knocks one of the buckles off her shoe on a car door and Poirot picks it up for her (while judging her for her totally not chic footwear).

Just a few hours after Poirot goes home, our old pal Inspector Japp comes a'calling for him because Dr. Morel has been shot dead in his office (suicide, maybe?)! The reason Scotland Yard is involved rather than just the local bobbies is that a v. important British banking man, Alistair Blunt, had an appointment shortly before Dr. M was offed, and they're afraid it might have been an attempt on his life. Mr. Blunt, being a bigtime financier and conservative has, depending on who you ask, protected England from the volatile political forces sweeping through other countries by keeping the nation on firm financial footing OR acted as a fuddy-duddy impediment to progress with his old-school conservative financial ideas #feeltheBern.

Anyhow, Poirot is totally convinced Dr. M was murdered, while Japp (typically) takes everything at face value and assumes it is suicide. Poirot digs a bit further because he just doesn't buy it, and something feels weird. A few days later, one of the other folks who visited Dr. Morel's office that day turns up dead at his hotel of apparent novocaine/adrenaline poisoning, and Japp again decides for sure Dr. M killed himself because he realized he had poisoned his patient. Poirot still doesn't buy it. A few days later, Ms. Sainsbury Seale (of the shoe buckles) disappears, causing everyone (probably except Poirot b/c he's ten steps ahead) to wonder if her disappearance is linked to the deaths of the dentist and the other dude, Mr. Amberiotis #THEPLOTTHICKENS. Mr. Blunt, the financier, is v. concerned about the case because everyone is trying to figure out if it actually has to do with people trying to off him, and eventually asks Poirot to do a little investigating, particularly into Sainsbury Seale's disappearance. One of the other patients that day was a former secret agent, and Poirot chats with him frequently about the case, sussing out all the themes of potential political intrigue from the facts of the case. The little web tightens, and secret agents get involved, before eventually Poirot tracks down the real clues and sorts them out from some very red herrings.

The YOA Treatment:
In the US (at least originally), this book was called The Patriotic Murders (which honestly is a better name than One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, IMHO, which sounds kind of juvenile). The Patriotic Murders title also fits with the themes present in the book, which of course are #MURDER and also #PATRIOTISM, as one of the main characters is basically a Gilbert & Sullivan musical always banging on about duty to England. Presumably the title One, Two, Buckle My Shoe was inspired by the shoe buckles on Ms. Sainsbury Seale's fugly shoes, and Agatha carried it through the book, naming various chapters after lines in that little nursery rhyme (if you've seen the Suchet version they take it EVEN FURTHER by allowing creepy children to sing the bloody rhyme throughout the film, making it way creepier than necessary). This one is a pretty straight-up whodunnit for Poirot, who even gets tripped up himself by the clever twists and turns of intrigue as the plot winds along.

I enjoyed this one, and would even place it up there near the top of my list of Poirot books we've read this year, because the plot was intriguing, and it was really interesting how Agatha incorporated some of the political arguments of the day into the mystery. There were also some pretty interesting parallels to today's totally bananas political environment, including this, which must have been relevant in 1940 but could also basically be an opinion piece on the 2016 elections (and #Brexit, sorry European/British friends, at least you don't have Trump?):

"Sweep away the old order! The Tories, the Conservatives, the Diehards, the hardheaded suspicious Business Men, that's the idea. Perhaps these people are right -- I don't know -- but I know one thing -- you've got to have something to put in place of the old order -- something that will work -- not just something that sounds all right."

This was a great book to read in an election year, because the political themes add a fascinating element to the really solid mystery of the story. Without providing too many spoilers, it's difficult to say how, exactly, those play into the story and the solving of the mystery, but I recommend this one to anyone who likes a little politics & government with their fiction.

- E.

Bonus Read: Christopher Bollen's Orient | 2015

(Grab a copy of Orient at your local bookstore, or Amazon!)

"What else can I tell you that you won't believe? That I saw the killer's face the night I left? I did. I held a flare into the darkness and saw a face so familiar that anyone might pass it on the sidewalk and not blink an eye. They might even say hello." -Orient, p. 6

Clearly we are in the zone this year, reading a book a week in order to meet the goals of our project. Being bookish, of course, we often wish we had more time in the day to take in additional tomes, and the Memorial Day holiday weekend afforded us a bit of said coveted time for bonus reading! We had a long list of potential candidates, but when we learned of author Christopher Bollen's Agatha Christie fandom, we knew his 2015 mystery/thriller Orient was the book for us!

Twitter revealed Bollen as a fellow fan, and led us to this super fun Daily Beast article accounting his pilgrimage to Greenway House, Agatha's home in Torquay (the article is really a great read and offers us lots of fun tidbits about the Queen of Crime). We got even more excited about reading his tale of crime after identifying with this description of his own childhood:

"My only recreation during sixth and seventh grade was reading Christie. I craved her murders. I envisioned myself strolling through the village of St. Mary Mead or attending an archaeology dig in Mesopotamia alongside Poirot and a number of suspicious, well-tailored aristocrats."

We second that emotion! Bollen explains that he got his start as a grade-school writer, crafting Christie-inspired tales of crime with lots of murders and female murderers, but drifted away from detective stories as he grew up, favoring more "literary" literature. Eventually, as we all do, he circled back to his childhood interests and decided to try his hand at mystery writing, taking inspiration not only from Agatha's clever, puzzling mysteries, but also her deft depiction of place and characters. 

Though the name of the town where he set his book (inspired by a real life town on the North Fork of Long Island) coincidentally echoes one of Agatha's most well-known books, Bollen writes "I liked that my Orient held a quiet acknowledgement of the master."

Thusly, we present our Year of Agatha review of Orient, an NPR Best Book of the Year!

The Sum of It:

We enter the story through a mysterious prologue, a message to readers from the main character at the end of the story, the first of many ably executed Christie call-backs in the book. The character, Mills Chevern (an adopted name), hooks you with his own background, but also with statements such as: 

"It is hard for me to picture those first days without seeing the madness that was to follow. I realize now that the deaths in Orient would have happened whether I made my way east or not. They were like matchsticks in a book waiting neatly to be ripped and burned."

UH, YEAH! TELL US MORE.

Mills, a teenager who grew up in foster care in California and made his way to New York City, gets taken in by Paul, a friendly architect with "the head of a lion," who by way of helping Mills get clean takes Mills out to his summer house in the small coastal town where Paul grew up, Orient. Mills finds himself dropped right in the middle of some standard suburban-style strife, old-timers who resent newcomers disrupting idyllic village life, battles between members of the village historical board on how best to preserve their place, some desperate housewife action, husbands looking to prove their virility, and rebellious teens. Mills finds that Orient has also become home to some cosmopolitan artists hoping to find their creativity stoked by the pastoral setting. 

Mills finds himself a bit of a polarizing figure in town, a scraggly young stranger who arrives just before a series of local murders rocks the village, paired with the periodic washing up on the shore of creepy mutant animals, presumably the bi-products of a government laboratory on a nearby island. Even so, he has a few friends in town, his benefactor, Paul, Beth, a native of Orient who has returned from a stint in New York with her artist husband, and the handsome, angsty teen next door, Tommy (who is maybe not so much a friend as a fascination #crushing #hearteyes). From the time the first dead body turns up in the bay, all eyes are on the poor guy who just wants to help Paul clean out his house and form something like a normal life. 

The tension in the tale builds like music, starting slow, then gathering like dark storm clouds rolling in from the ocean. You can almost hear the Jaws theme getting faster and scarier as the pages turn, which explains why it was 1:42 a.m. when Emily finished the book and sent a photo of her totally surprised/impressed face to Audrey.

The YOA Treatment:

This was a delicious, compelling mystery with some major Agatha elements. We got fooled by some totally classic red herrings, and Bollen's keenly crafted depiction of the tensions in village life definitely remind us of a heightened version of the tea and scandal found in St. Mary Mead. In particular, one of the twists amid the reveal of the killer is SUCH an Agatha move, which we obviously can't tell you about here because you should for sure read this book, but it's just an added little element to help explain the motive of the killer that adds a hint of spice and a little more depth to the story. 

The setting of the book comes alive, perhaps particularly so due to recent consumption of similarly set tales, including Showtime's The Affair, set in Montauk, the Harrison Ford/Greg Kinnear version of Sabrina #ontheNorthShoreofLongIsland (David did a GAP AD), and of course F. Scott's perfect tale of West Egg, The Great Gatsby. It simultaneously made us want to visit a Long Island seaside village and NEVER visit such a village because #MURDER. 

As an aside, one of the more interesting descriptive elements in the book which eventually made us chuckle was Bollen's choice of words in describing everyone's skin tones. At one point we started asking ourselves, is everyone in this town supposed to be an alien, or has dear Bollen developed a sort of color-blindness specific to skin? There are at least eight different instances of totally alive people being described with skin in tones of blue, green, and grey; "her skin as gray-green as algae," "light hair and skin-color, that of a mildewed paperback novel," "his complexion was a shade of yellow-green," "the pewter pallor of her skin," and even someone, an alive someone, described as having cheeks the color of blueberries #ghostpeople #reversesixthsense? Certainly lent a distinct tone to all the people in town! 

While we feel like Agatha has had an inspirational effect on most mystery writers today, whether in her ability to create a Rubik's-style puzzle in each element of the story or her talent for really persuasive red herrings, we really enjoyed reading a totally new thriller bold in its embrace of Agatha's influence. We recommend fitting this into your library as well.

-E. & A. 

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Wuff, Wuff!: Dumb Witness | 1937

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"'Oh Poirot,' I cried. 'It can't be natural death! It's got to be murder!'

'Oh la la, we seem to have changed places, you and I.'" 

Dumb Witness, p. 220

The Sum of It:

Our story this week begins (quite literally!) with a death: that of Ms. Emily Arundell. Emily Arundell is a secretly-uber-wealthy spinster woman with many needy nieces and nephews, all of whom decide Easter weekend is the perfect time for a family reunion at which to beg Aunt Emily for some of her money. During said holiday weekend, Emily falls down the stairs in the nighttime, an incident which is unfortunately blamed on her darling dog Bob and his allegedly left upon the stairs ball! But is that really what happened? Ms. Arundell doesn't think so and writes a letter to Poirot about her concerns, a letter which she hides from her nosy maidservants tucked away in her writing-case (#snailmail). ALAS, she turns up dead some weeks later and her maidservant mournfully finds the unsent letter and says "Oh I'll be a good servant and send this for my poor dead mistress" (of course not knowing who Poirot is and why Emily Arundell sent him a letter). Poirot receives said letter many weeks after Ms. Arundell initially writes it, a fact which intrigues him instantly.

Poirot and Hastings, under the guise of being a Mr. Parotti & Plus One who are alternately researching for a book on the super en vogue topic of lesser known generals in the Indian Munity (#someonesgottadoit), looking to buy some real estate in the countryside, or having vague liver diseases, scour the small village of Market Basing for clues of the cause of Emily Arundel's eventual demise. They finally dispense with the theatrics (after Hastings starts feeling bad about the web of lies and also people find out it's THE Hercule Poirot and put two and two together) and investigate the case FOR REALZ. After many interviews with Emily Arundell's frankly super shady relatives Theresa, Charles, and Bella (#moneygrubbers), as well as her household staff, occult-loving neighbors, and recently-ish acquired paid companion (and soul recipient of Emily's VAST fortune), Miss Lawson, Poirot and Hastings sit back and think about the facts they have gathered and try to piece together whether they are dealing with a natural liver-failure death or #MURDER.

The YOA Treatment:

We were a bit saddened to realize that Dumb Witness is the penultimate Poirot book featuring Hastings as a narrator/sidekick/BFF! As always, their banter is really terrific in this book. Here are some of our favorite moments:

"Dear me," I complained. "There is something about this place that makes me feel extremely conspicuous. As for you, Poirot, you look positively exotic."

"You think it is noticed that I am a foreigner—yes?"

"The fact cries aloud to heaven," I assured him.

"And yet my clothes are made by an English tailor," mused Poirot.

(Chapter 6)

"Poirot," I said. "Have we got to listen at doors?"

"Calm yourself, my friend. It was only I who listened! It was not you who put your ear to the crack. On the contrary, you stood bolt upright like a soldier."

(Chapter 15)

We also enjoyed seeing Agatha's love for dogs shine from her adorable character, Bob the dog. Agatha has sprinkled a bit of Bob "dialogue" throughout the book and the result is so charming that even anti-pet Poirot is won over:

"Good watchdog, aren't I? he seemed to be saying. "Don't mind me! This is just my fun! My duty too, of course. Just have to let 'em known there's a dog about the place! Deadly dull morning. Quite a blessing to have something to do. Coming into our place? Hope so. It's durned dull. I could do with a little conversation."

"Hullo, old man," I said and shoved forward a fist.

Craning his neck through the railings he sniffed suspiciously, then gently wagged his tail, uttering a few, short, staccato barks.

"Not been properly introduced, of course, have to keep this up! But I see you know the proper advances to make."

"Good old boy," I said.

"Wuff," said the terrier amiably.

(Chapter 6)

David Suchet also writes in his memoir, Poirot and Me, about being "captivated" by Bob the dog on the set of the film Dumb Witness (shown in photo below played by the adorable terrier named Snubby!)

(image from here)

Overall, we came away from Dumb Witness appreciating it as a rather classic-feeling Christie. While the plot and character development didn't really stand out, the whimsical Bob and delightful Poirot/Hastings dynamic we know and love made for an enjoyable read.

-A. & E.

Papa Poirot Gets Protective: Peril at End House | 1931

(image from here)

"You are in danger - grave danger. I tell to you. I! And you do not know who I am?" -Hercule Poirot, Peril at End House, p. 23

We have come to the end of our first #YOAreadalong! Thanks so much to those of you who read Peril at End House with us this week - it was so fun to hear your thoughts and become better acquainted over Agatha! Also - stay tuned for the winner of our #giveaway announcement in the next few days! And, for those of you who haven't had a chance to read Peril yet, fear not! We will still give you our recap for this week, and you can join us for our next #YOAreadalong, Murder on the Orient Express!

The Sum of It:

Hercule Poirot is still "retired", but is happily reunited with his bestie Hastings for a seaside vacay. While getting their resort on, Poirot literally stumbles upon a cute girl named Nick Buckley who, while they are chatting, is nearly killed by a stray bullet. Poirot is obviously concerned for her safety and goes into full Papa Poirot mode and makes it his life mission to keep her out of harm's way. Nick is a little apprehensive (and sassy) at first about this total random foreign stranger making his way into her life and insisting that someone is trying to #MURDER her, but after Poirot has Hastings explain to Nick just exactly who they are dealing with (THE Poirot!), she takes him seriously.

Poirot suggests she find a fairly dull, yet reliable, friend to come stay with her to make sure there's no more attempted murder funny business going on so Nick says I HAVE JUST THE GIRL! Aka, her cousin Maggie. However, Cousin Maggie has been at Nick's fairly crumbly mansion, End House, for not even 24 hours when she is found #MURDERED, and apparently mistaken for Nick when she is killed! Poirot, feeling fairly devastated that he was not able to prevent this death from happening under his nose, vows to track down the killer before they are able to knock off their intended target.

Nick has surrounded herself with quite the cast of characters who sound like a real bunch of #newromantics in her crumbly old house, including Nick's cousin Mr. Vyse, a lawyer whom Hastings is immediately suspicious of on account of his being a lawyer and having blonde hair and an impassive face, Commander Challenger, a stalwart military man with a suntanned face and a not-so-secret love for Nick, Freddie (aka Frederica), Nick's alternatively zen and spastic (#cocaine) bff, and Mr. Lazarus, a glamorous and wealthy art dealer who is Freddie's not-so-secret man on the side. Nick is renting the lodge on her property to some VERY AUSTRALIAN AUSTRALIANS (Poirot finds them suspicious because they seem toooo sincere). Some characters outside the frame include Nick's secret lover, a wealthy, Lindbergh-style pilot trying to fly around the world, and Freddie's erstwhile husband. We also get to see Inspector Japp!

To help with sorting out all the potential suspects, Poirot creates a list of possible baddies, A-J, item J being someone who exists but is unknown. Nick gets locked up in a hospital (for her own protection), and Poirot gets down to business with the investigating, at one point even making Hastings pretend to be a medium conducting a seance (blessed Hastings), before revealing a red herring or two AND surprising everyone with the #DARKTRUTH in the end.

Because that's what we all do on our seaside vacays.

The YOA Treatment:

Though there are a million things we could touch on, we want to leave some of the discussion to you guys! A few things we want to highlight:

>The Agatha Wrap Up: one of the things that is just so deliciously satisfying about Agatha Christie novels is how you rarely (if ever!) have lingering questions after you finish the book. Each detail of the storyline is there for a reason, and if it isn't there to bring color or character to the plot, you're going to find out why it's included before the book is done. One reader (Kelly) pointed out that Agatha goes to the trouble of resolving a minor, minor plot point at the very end of Peril and how pleasant it is to end on that kind of note.

>Sassy Poirot: Poirot is particularly sassy in this book. He and Hastings have their typical bickering, but it's at new heights during their End House adventures. Poirot is calling Hastings his "faithful dog", turning up his nose at English breakfasts, and makes a passionate plea for Hastings to get a Poirot-esque mustache (and to part his hair in the middle so as to be more symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing). Hastings observes that he repressed a "shudder at the thought." We also get some standard Poirot-to-Hastings zingers, including: "Hastings has a singularly beautiful nature. It has been the greatest hindrance to me at times." Of himself, Poirot cutely says, "I am convinced that le bon Dieu created Hercule Poirot for the express purpose of interfering. It is my metier."

>Classic Hastings: Hastings has previously revealed himself to be 100% certain of many things, and as a general rule he is almost always wrong and then totally baffled by his own wrongness. Poirot has picked up on this trend, saying to his friend after a particularly certain character assessment: "You have an extraordinary effect on me, Hastings. You have so strongly the flair in the wrong direction that I am almost tempted to go by it!" Hastings also recounts his own bafflement in an adorable story about Poirot's one failed case, saying "And I smiled, for at the time that Poirot told me that tale, he had instructed me to say "chocolate box" to him if ever I should fancy he was growing conceited! He was then bitterly offended when I used the magical words only a minute and a quarter later." So mysterious can't imagine why Poirot was annoyed by that.

>Style: This feels like quintessential Agatha and Poirot. The storytelling is pretty tight, although not quite at its zenith, and the mystery offers the classic set of twists at the end that leave you marveling at Agatha's creativity. Though some of the red herrings just FEEL like red herrings, it's fantastic how she ties them into the story so that even though they're not the main solution to the mystery, they are a part of the whole in a really clever way.

We also get a little more of a look into some of the big questions one could consider in mystery writing. In her autobiography, Agatha mentions that she is much more interested in the victim of the crime than the perpetrator. In this book, Poirot shares this perspective as he is discussing one of the many attempts on Nick's life, saying to her "For me -- I have different work to perform. I have the innocent to think of, not the guilty -- the victim, not the criminal." But this doesn't mean that Poirot isn't also trying to get into the psyche of the murderer. As he is trying to work through all his theories with the trusty Hastings, he exclaims "Motive!", saying "Let us come back to that, and regard this problem calmly and methodically. To begin with, how many kinds of motive are there for murder? What are the motives which lead one human being to take another human being's life?"

What did you love or hate about the book?? If this is your first Agatha reading experience, are you hooked? Did you already run out to your local book store or fire up the ol' Amazon account and grab some more? Will you join us for our next #YOAreadalong?? TELL US ALL YOUR THOUGHTZ AND FEELINGZ!!