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The Monogram Murders

the New Hercule Poirot Mystery
Dec 13, 2016s390325 rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
If you would like to read a mystery that features characters from Agatha Christie and a complex mystery plot, but without several key characteristics of most Agatha Christie novels, then this book is for you. I thought this book was an interesting read. However, it has enough differences in style and plot that it cannot really be considered another Agatha Christie (besides the use of her characters). I thought it was more interesting as far as plot twists and turns than some of her not as well acclaimed works, but nowhere near the quality of her greatest works. I just read this book for the second time (perhaps that says something that I wasn't sure if I had read it previously or not). The first time I read it the plot convolutions were difficult to follow; reading it the second time and remembering some details it made more sense although some plot details still seemed a bit unbelievable and/ or very un- Agatha Christie. (**Spoiler alert**): Very little is said about the vicar, but he must have been a very handsome and very charismatic person for 3 women to fall so strongly in love with him! That would be my first point of the plot being a bit unbelievable. The second is that there apparently are no nice or likeable people in Great Holling besides perhaps Margaret Ernst and the doctor. This also seems quite anti-Christie, because many of her mysteries are set in small towns and even though there is (obviously) a murderer in the town, the town itself is not a menacing, evil figure the way (in my opinion) Great Holling is in this novel. I agree that Poirot seems a bit meaner (as far as not giving Catchpool any hints) than in other mysteries, I don't remember him being so obsessed with the arrangement of silverware, and in the first few chapters he uses more French phrases than I remember him using in other mysteries. I also find it difficult to believe that Richard Negus, after trying to drink himself to death for 15 years, finds the energy to write to Jennie and set up the whole thing, or that Nancy could have helped with murdering people, or that after 15 years of Nancy helping Jennie, the news that Nancy did not have a "chaste" relationship with Patrick (and as a housemaid, you'd think Jennie would already know this) makes Jennie homicidal. The multiple explanations of what really happened were frustrating and confusing, even though I was reading it for the second time. I think the biggest un-Christie like disappointment is that there is no "happy ending"... usually there is always a couple who perhaps have been misunderstood or under suspicion but at the end of the novel, are free to go off and live happily ever after. Margaret Ernst and Dr. Ambrose really don't fit the bill.