#ReadThis @AgathaChristie @HarperCollins @Morrow_PB #TheClocks by #AgathaChristie #Thirty-Third #33 #HerculePoirot #Mystery #ReadChristie2022
The time has come for many things said the Walrus...Tick Tock Goes the Clock...and it's time for another Poirot! We love how Agatha pays homage to Alice in Wonderland here. The master of properly using the little gray cells is back, and for everyone that types-which is literally everyone these days-you'll relate to the secretarial scene that starts off this winner of a mystery. Have your own tea party with this one and you are late for a very important date if you haven't cracked this open yet (and bring your white rabbit.) This will appeal to collectors of anything as well, but especially clocks of course. Why would you want to tell time digitally when you can do it in style with Roman numerals! We love the intellect going on in this work.
Narrator Colin Lamb, somewhat a protege of Poirot's, is front and center in this tale and his charm and intelligence will appeal to all. However, by far our most favorite character in this tale is Geraldine Mary Alexandra Brown. She is wise beyond her years and we only wish she was in more of the book earlier.
Of course there is a murder right off the bat and in typical Whom You Know style, we will not tell you the plot. Does one really come home to be murdered? What's English and what isn't? Does it matter? Certainly Hercule Poirot who comes on the scene on page 134 is decidedly Belgian as ever, and by this thirty-third tale of his his expertise is quite established and perhaps you will find yourself thinking like him by now if you read the previous 32 like we did and reviewed.
A favorite Poirotism is on page 137:
"Enfin," said Poirot. "I am modest. But one should not need to use a rapier to cut the string of a parcel."
Think about motive. Think about the characters around the scene. And of course why would you only have one murder when you could have two? Engage in conversation! Simplicity! Who is Lady Macbeth here?
Bask in his wisdom. See if you can figure this one out for yourself: you must be getting close to being an expert by now! Always ask the right questions. Count those clocks and note the time! You'd be absolutely Cuckoo to not read this!
The Clocks is Highly Recommended by Whom You Know.
Previously on Whom You Know, we have raved about Agatha:
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Murder on the Links
Poirot Investigates
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Big Four
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Peril at End House
https://www.whomyouknow.com/2020/11/readthis.agathachristie.perilatendhouse.peachydeegan.harpercollins.williammorrow.html#.X7lGvGhKg2w
Lord Edgware Dies
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
and we took a break from only him and did him with others in Midwinter Murder
and returned to only him with Death in the Clouds
The ABC Murders
Murder in Mesopotamia
Cards on the Table
Murder in the Mews
Dumb Witness
Death on the Nile
Appointment with Death
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Sad Cypress
One Two Buckle My Shoe
Evil Under the Sun
Five Little Pigs
The Hollow
The Labors of Hercules
Taken at the Flood
The Under Dog and Other Stories
Mrs. McGinty's Dead
After the Funeral
Hickory Dickory Dock
Dead Man's Folly
Cat Among the Pigeons
About the Author
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only in the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, around thirty plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.
She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now-legendary Hercule Prior with her debut novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. In 1930, Miss Jane Marple made her first full-length novel appearance in The Murder at the Vicarage, quickly becoming another beloved and enduring character to rival Poirot's popularity. Additional series characters include the husband-and wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.
Many of Christie's novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap opened in 1952 and is the longest running play in history. Academy Award-nominated actor and director Kenneth Branagh helmed the acclaimed major motion picture Murder on the Orient Express in 2017 and its sequel, Death on the Nile, starring in both films as the Belgian detective. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.
Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain's highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. The one-hundred-year anniversary of Agatha Christie stories and the debut of Hercule Poirot was celebrated around the world in 2020. Whom You Know will never stop celebrating it!
