Customer Rating:  
Summary: Third Girl--Three Stars
Comment: This novel, written in the 60s, is not, in my opinion, one of her best. The three stars, however, is a Christie rating. It is still better than a lot of modern mysteries out there. My main problem was the vagueness at the beginning of the book, which led to temporary confusion as to who the third girl actually was. The writer Ariadne Oliver is also a vague character (and annoying). Christie does a valiant job trying to reflect the Beatnik era and obviously did her homework on the drugs du jour. Still, the overall work lacks coherence. Like Poirot, I was well and truly stumped (much time is given to the detective's mental processes). When the ins and outs of the mystery were finally revealed, much of it seemed far-fetched. I much preferred Sleeping Murder, a Miss Marple mystery, and They Came to Baghdad.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Poirot ponders his puzzle and looks for patterns
Comment: Agatha Christie offers her readers a strange little mystery. A young woman shows up at Hercule Poirot's door and insists that she thinks that she has committed murder. True to most Christie mystery books, the author brings in a half dozen or so of interesting suspects all with their own possible motives and quirks. In this particular plot, however, Christie spends some time showing Poirot's own particular way of laying out all the facts in front of him like an imaginary puzzle. He is vexed to no end in his pursuit of the missing pattern...missing papers, paintings, a Peacock, a travel-happy father, a alcoholic woman who throws herself (or is pushed?) from a balcony, etc. The ever-confident Ariadne Oliver shows up to help out our hero in uncovering the specifics. Georges, Poirots' manservant, and Miss Lemon, his secretary, also show up in this volume of the Poirot series. This mystery is a bit slower than some of the greater and more classic Christie mysteries, but having the opportunity to scrutinize the fastidiousness of the Belgian detective's mind will satisfy most serious Poirot fans.
Customer Rating:
Summary: WILL SOMEONE LET THE WOMAN SPEAK?
Comment: Whose work are we actually reading at this point? There were major differences in punctuation, word choices, and scene breaks between the original Collins and Dodd Mead editions of this novel. There were further differences between the Dodd Mead editions republished by Random House/Avenel and the Dodd Mead editions republished by Simon & Shuster/Pocket. There are further additions still in the recent Signet, Berkley, and Leventhal and Black editions. For every publishing house putting out her works, there seem to be a new batch of editors altering Agatha Christie's words and the sound of her voice. Here the publishers at Collins, dissatisfied with their own earlier efforts, put still more distance between author and public with a "New Ed" edition. What's the matter with these publishers? Whose voice do they think we want to hear when we sit down to a novel by Agatha Christie? And what will she sound like twenty years from now? It's frightening that her estate has failed to see the importance of guarding her words as she wrote them. Please tell me I'm not the only one here who senses that a crime has been committed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Mod Christie
Comment: A young woman rudely barges into Hercule Poirot's residence claiming that she may have murdered someone. Before the Belgian sleuth can gather further information, the young lady leaves opining that Poirot is too old to be of any assistance. Disturbed and unsatisfied, Poirot tracks down the young lady and finds out, first things first, what mystery needs solving and then solves it.
In many ways this book is very typical of Agatha Christie. The book relies not on action, but on gradually presenting the reader with information, including a number of blind alleys and red herrings, and then providing a rational resolution of the many facts. The setting and peopling of the book is, however, quite different from many of Christie's works. Much like Poirot in the book, it appears that Ms. Christie is trying to show her readers that older does not mean incapable of accurately observing the world. Ms. Christie drops us in 1960's London, peeking into the world of modern apartment living, avant garde art and young folks in general. Indeed, I don't recall meeting a single parson in this book. Third Girl is a fine Agatha Christie deductive mystery with a refreshing change of scenery.
Customer Rating:
Summary: M. Poirot takes on the 1960s
Comment: I had forgotten that Hercule Poirot was solving crimes way past the between-the-wars golden age of detective fiction. Third Girl is set in swinging London of the mid-sixties - think Twiggy, Carnaby Street, etc.. The detective and the author are equally bemused by the changes in society. Hercule Poirot was eccentric back in the day, but in the 60s, with his giant waxed moustache, he's outlandish. When the Third Girl of the title looks up M. Poirot, she blurts out "You're too old!" and takes off.
Poirot, of course, prevails with the help of his friend the mystery writer Ariadne Oliver, and an extensive Rolodex including people who have more of a grip on modern problems. Still, the problems of murder are timeless and I certainly never guessed "who done it" although I at least picked up some of the clues.
If you love a classic murder mystery and want to sample a 60's period piece, you will enjoy Third Girl.
|
