Review : The A.B.C. Murders

November 29, 2012
Author: Agatha Christie
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Year:2011
ISBN:978-0062073587
Rating: ★★★★☆
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Agatha Christie is always been one of the “star” of mysterious novels writer. She wrote several novels for all those who love a dosage of mystery in their reading. Her writing has been chosen by novel lovers from many decades. She was called as queen of crime, for writing such genius suspense novels. One of the most renowned novels of her is The A.B.C murders.

The title is somewhat unique that it compels the reader to at least give a thought about its story. She gave birth to a very well known detective Hercule poirot, which happens to be the main character of this novel, as the whole plot mainly revolves around him. There are other novels which were written concerning the same detective and this novel happens to be the thirteenth one in the succession

Isaac Anderson in The New York Times wrote, “This story is a baffler of the first water, written in Agatha Christie’s best manner. It seems to us the very best thing she has done, not even excepting ‘Roger Ackroyd’.”

The story takes a new route when it also tells a different plot simultaneously of a guy which is show cased as “the suspect”. This makes the whole plot more interesting and asks for more concentration from reader as well.

This novel is based of serial murders. A post is delivered to the detective “Hercule Poirot” by “ABC” who is taunting him in his letter and tells him that he is going to kill someone in Andover. The place and name of person are in alphabetical order. The first two murders take place but in third one- the address gets mismatched, because of this the third victim gets killed too. Then the fourth murder takes place, but victim is not that person who should have been killed according to Hercule. In this whole scenario- a person named “Cust” is shown to be a potential killer. This is the very person whose third person story readers are reading simultaneously in the novel. As he is suffering from black outs and headaches, most of the time he doesn’t remember what he is doing. This makes him apprehensive of his own actions and he admits the crime.

The best thing in this novel is – Hercule’s indigenous explanation of how and why the murder took place. He had his doubts on from the very first day on everyone, he doesn’t spare even a single person, and everyone is in his circle of suspicion till the time case is not solved.

This novel is for all mystery novel readers. It can be said as one of the most pleasurable and entertaining of all the novels that can be found in this genre.

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