Classic Corner Review: Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly – Agatha Christie

E-Book: 75 Pages
Publisher: Witness Impulse (November 12, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10:
ISBN-13: 978-
Order e-book here:
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Characters:

Hercule Poirot – Belgian Detective.
Ariadne Oliver – Mystery Writer and Amateur Sleuth.

Synopsis:

Ariadne Oliver is hired by a wealthy family to host a murder mystery event at their lavish party. Hercule Poirot is called in to consult. However, things soon go very wrong, someone is murdered for real and Hercule Poirot is left to solve the case.

Review

A very short mystery from one of the masters of the genre. This was originally written as a short story to be given to a fund to put stained glass windows in a church near her. HoweverThe amount was ₤1000 ($1,619) or ₤18,000 ($29,149.20) in today’s money. The length however proved to be a problem. It was too short for the novel market, and too long for the short story market. It was pulled from publication, and Ms. Christy used some of the information in her next full length novel Dead Man’s Folly. A much shorter story called Greenshaw’s Folly was published in 1956 and can be found in the short story collection The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding which was published in 1960.

When the opportunity to read this, a story that hadn’t as written here, been published, and not seen in 60 years, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I love Ms. Christie’s work and was eager to read it.

Having read it, I’ll say I enjoyed it. While it’s appeal will most likely be only to hard core Christie Fans, I found it an enjoyable short weekend read. There were some issues with it that made it apparent that it hadn’t had all the kinks ironed out. In the final solution, there are events that happened, that the reader had no way of knowing. In the field of mystery writing, that’s looked at as cheating. However, since this was never intended to be the completed product as-is, I look past that.

On a historical basis, I found it very interesting and a great looking into the development of a classic mystery novel. For fans of mysteries and particularly for dedicated fans of Ms. Christie, this is definitely one you want to pick up, just for a glimpse into the development cycle. If I had to rate it, I’d rate it PG-13 because there is a murder. It’s also, as common with all of Ms. Christie’s events, a tougher reader due to the British idioms, than a more modern mystery would be. Overall thought, for fans I’d recommend it. For $2.99 for the ebook and an entire evening or weekend’s entertainment, you can’t beat the price.

Agatha Christie was born in 1890 and created the detective Hercule Poirot in her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920).

She achieved wide popularity with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) and produced a total of eighty novels and short-story collections over six decades.

 

*Disclaimer* A special thanks goes out to Danielle at Harper Collins for a review copy of this book. It in no way influenced my review. You can discuss it here or join my facebook page and discuss it there.

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4 Responses to “Classic Corner Review: Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly – Agatha Christie”

  1. Julie Higgins Keegan Says:

    Good review and I agree completely!

  2. Julie Higgins Keegan Says:

    Oh and you must read Halloween Party for some more similarities.

  3. Rick Rhodes Says:

    Thanks Julie. I’ll have to check it and the other one out you mentioned.

  4. Rick Rhodes Says:

    It was so short, that it was hard to review and not give away spoilers, so I threw in a little of the history. Even though it’s in the book, I figured it would jazz it up a little. :-)

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