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346 ratings, 3.63 average rating, 15 reviews
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published
November 1991
(first published 1958)
by HarperPaperbacks
binding
Mass Market Paperback, 272 pages
isbn
006100278X
(isbn13: 9780061002786)
description
While serving a sentence for killing his mother, Jacko Argyle dies in prison. Two years later, a stranger shatters the peace of the Argyle househol...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 425)
Read in November, 2008
recommends it for:
no one
I got 100 pages in before I literally threw it across the floor! You want to care about the adoptive mother who was slain two years ago with a fire poker through the gullet. But nothing is rendered with feeling, and though the Argyle household is appropriately rendered as cold and heartless, our investigator, Mr. Calgary, has no other motive but to move the book along.
Leave it to rot on the library shelves with the other obscure lesser tomes.
Leave it to rot on the library shelves with the other obscure lesser tomes.
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Read in July, 2008
A satisfying Christie, set in one of her big manor houses and stuffed with eclectic family members and their little feuds. One of which, of course, is the not-so-little matter of murder. None of Christie's recurring detectives appear in this book; instead we have a slightly bland doctor doing the sleuthing without really managing to make himself very interesting to the reader. The family members, on the other hand, are nicely fleshed out. Christie leads up to the unveiling of the murderer by...more
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I was a little disappointed with this one. I love Agatha Christie, but this one was really slow. Although it had a great plot, I didn't like how it was presented. Most of the book is people talking about a murder that happened two years before. There is very little suspense until the last few chapters. Even then, I didn't like the very end of the book, it was a little too fairy tale-ish for a murder mystery.
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Read in June, 2007
When the dead black sheep of the family is cleared of his mother's murder, the entire family comes under agonizing scrutiny as suspects in the two-year-old crime. Christie provides intriguing psychological portraits of her characters, though her old-fashioned views about adoption can be grating at times. The denouement is somewhat far-fetched, but it's a fun suspense story to read on a rainy day.
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Read in June, 2008
It's been a long time since I read Agatha Christie.
I still love the way she kept the killer's identity until the very last pages.
But I can't stand the story that goes back and forth, like this. It seemed to me that every single characters in this book needed to tell the very story over and over again. It was frustrating, nonetheless.
I still love the way she kept the killer's identity until the very last pages.
But I can't stand the story that goes back and forth, like this. It seemed to me that every single characters in this book needed to tell the very story over and over again. It was frustrating, nonetheless.
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Read in March, 2008
Very good mystery from the Grande Dame of mysteries, Agatha Christie. I actually enjoyed this; but I think knowing that Richard Armitage plays the part of Phillip Durrant in the "Miss Marple" film mystery of the same name probably upped my enjoyment level since I will be viewing the film shortly.
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recommends it for:
everyone
I choose this as a representative of Agatha Christie's many (80?) mysteries. It's one of my favorites, even though it does not feature either Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot. It provided the insight that until a murder is solved, the many suspects and not presumed innocent, but rather suspected guilty.
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Read in January, 2008
While I liked the moral of the book about innocence, I didn't like this book's 'detective' as much as I liked Christie's other detectives. I liked the characters. I did figure out who the murder was before the revelations scene, but only just before it. Overall, a good read.
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Not one of her better books(to be honest, lacking a little in plot, not that much happens), but Agatha Christie's books are in a class of their own, so it doesn't really matter. I, as ever, had no clue at all to the identity of the murderer, and the family tensions are well-written.
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Read in March, 2007
Read in Slovene under the title Gnezdo zla.
Not Poirot. A man appears at a family mansion, claiming he has information that might dispute the conviction of that family's son murder of the mother. Not one of Agatha's better works.
Not Poirot. A man appears at a family mansion, claiming he has information that might dispute the conviction of that family's son murder of the mother. Not one of Agatha's better works.
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Read in July, 2008
Definitely read this a long time ago, but worth a reread. Classic Christie -- suspect everyone!
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Read in April, 2008
Very heavy on dialog, low on action. But a great puzzler, like all Christie books.
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Read in February, 2007
recommends it for:
everyone
Very mysterious. The murderer was not who I expected him to be...
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Read in October, 1999
misterius sekali...
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mystery
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