This may have been the first Agatha Christie I ever read.
As a Reader’s Digest Condensed Book back when I was a kid.
Quite groundbreaking as one of the first serial killer stories.
10 people on an island. No way to leave.
One by one they are murdered in this spooky house.
Like most upper middle class Brits of her age, Agatha was somewhat racist. And even more antisemitic.
She got better over the decades, eventually casting homosexuals in positive roles. Surprisingly, the famously conservative old lady even voted to join the EU.
It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1939, as Ten Little Niggers,[3] after an 1869 minstrel song which serves as a major plot element. The US edition was released i 1940 with the title And Then There Were None, taken from the last five words of the song.
The book is the world’s best-selling mystery, and with over 100 million copies sold is one of the best-selling books of all time.
Like the novel, Good Omens features various Christian themes and figures and follows various characters all trying to either encourage or prevent an imminent Armageddon, seen through the eyes of the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley. …
Some of the irreverent dialogue is entertaining. Much is too absurd for me.
In particular, the ending of season 2 does not work.
Police (2013) is the 10th novel in Nesbø’s Harry Hole series.
OK — not great. My review.
The only thing worse than a serial killer is a serial killer targeting cops.
Arguably the most densely packed and ambitiously plotted novel in a series that has been getting darker with each volume, the tenth novel featuring Harry Hole is a companion sequel to its predecessor (Phantom, 2012).
That book had left the former Oslo detective no longer a member of the police force and perhaps no longer alive …
The police who investigated the original crimes and failed to solve them are lured back to the murder scenes, on the anniversaries of the murders, and are then themselves killed in an equally gruesome manner.
Is the killer the same as the first, covering his tracks? Or is he “an apostle of righteousness,” an agent of justice, insisting that those who failed to solve the crimes must pay for them? …
My theory is that Nora is increasingly moving away from romance. In this book no bodice is ripped until well into the second half of a long book.
This one is about identity theft. The conman not only takes the identity and steals the money — but also murders the victim.
Morgan Albright … bought a small house in the perfect neighbourhood outside of Baltimore, living with a friend and working two jobs to make ends meet.
Morgan’s life is happy and fulfilling, and she is making progress on her financial and career goals.
Her perfect world is shattered when someone breaks into her home and murders her roommate.
At first, the police assume it was a random act of violence, but after discovering the killer stole Morgan’s identity and her entire savings, they realize the crime fits the profile of a serial killer named Gavin Rozwell. …
l learned a lot from this book. Roberts does a lot of research into the back stories of her characters. In this case, Morgan has to move home with her Mom and Grandmother and reinvent her life working in a small town.
Yes the plot is a bit cheesy. And the characters a bit cliche.
A surprising life story for such a successful author.
Enter historian Lucy Worsley, whose declared intention is to rescue Christie, who died in 1976 at the age of 85, from the misperceptions that cling to her life and her works of fiction. …
… she revisits the most notorious episode of Christie’s life: her disappearance for 11 days in December 1926 …
Her gift for dialogue and for manipulating social stereotypes, as Worsley demonstrates, was formidable, keenly attuned to the proliferating class anxieties of the 20th century; numerous characters are, interestingly, transitional or dispossessed in some way …
Over the past few years I’ve been reading her 70+ books. Many are very good.
Agatha Christie 1950
Despite the books, magazines, TV adaptations, movies — Agatha had money troubles most of her life.
When asked “occupation“, Agatha stated “House Wife” her entire life.
She loved buying and maintaining homes. Loved shopping. Did have a social life.
Yet she was incredibly prolific and productive as a writer. Her plots she jotted down in notebooks.
One of the things I like best about Agatha are her books in exotic settings. She loved to travel. And her second husband was an archeologist. Agatha spent a lot of time with him on his digs in the Middle East.
The Curies announced the existence of an element they named “polonium“, and of a second element, which they named “radium“, from the Latin word for “ray”. In the course of their research, they also coined the word “radioactivity“.
The Brits famously broke the Enigma machine code at Bletchley Park. Gordon Welchman, who became head of Hut 6 working on that project, admitted they wouldn’t have been successful without consulting cipher-breakers Poles who had cracked Enigma in 1932.
It would take hundreds of hours to look at all 28,000 exhibited objects in the Deutsches Museum.
I downloaded the app and took a “highlights tour” with audio. Recommended for the first time visitor to the museum.
A lot of profanity and crude references. Nudity in the first few minutes.
Smart, hilarious dialogue. Lots of Aussie slang.
All 4 key police officers are played by queer actors … BUT lesbians will probably be shocked anyway. As well as entertained.
Actually, this show could offend pretty much anyone. 😀
On the upside, all the murder victims are heterosexual, white men. It’s about time.
The surviving men march to reclaim the night. That’s good comedy.
It’s a small town. The remaining straight men finally charter a bus to flee to safety.
Deadlock is a comedy/parody that skewers police procedurals, forensic scientists, small town life, arts festivals, food culture, straight life, alternative life…the list goes on.
And with all that there is a pretty reasonable murder mystery. …
Rick McCharles 