Mystery Mondays - Review: Sad Cypress

Well, I haven't seen anyone else devote Mondays to mysteries, but I also haven't been around long enough to have crossed paths will all the book blogs out there. At any rate, I'm choosing to start "Mystery Mondays" on my blog, and I'm kicking it off with a book review. Some Mondays I might ask questions and generate discussion or run a contest--I'm going to see where this takes me.

I don't know about y'all (showing my Southern origins there), but I LOVE to read mysteries. I have to confess that I've only just recently gotten better at figuring out "whodunnit," though. One of my favorite mystery authors is Agatha Christie. It had been YEARS since I picked up one of her books, but recently I've started collecting the hardcover reprints like the one pictured below--B&N almost always has some that are bargain-priced. Anyway, my favorite of Christie's detectives is Hercule Poirot, who we'll see in this book. So without further ado, here's my review!

Title: Sad Cypress
Author: Agatha Christie
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Pub Date: 2007 (Reprint), Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
Hardcover, 271 pages

Synopsis

An elderly, dying aunt, her considerable estate to be bequeathed, a classic love triangle, and a murder, or is it two? You'll find all this and more in Sad Cyrpress by Agatha Christie. This story actually starts on the first day of the trial of the accused, Elinor Carlisle. After that brief introduction, Christie then takes you back to the beginning of the story, where she devotes pages and pages leading up to the murder for which Elinor stands trial: Mary Gerrard, who was found dead from an overdose of morphine. And what would we do without our love triangle? Elinor became affianced to Roderick Welman before the pair went to visit their Aunt Laura, who had suffered a stroke. But everything changes when Roderick sees Mary for the first time... After the crime's been committed, there's at least one person who doesn't think (or doesn't want to think) Elinor is guilty--the good doctor who was treating Aunt Laura! And so he brings that famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, to bring the facts to light.

My Thoughts

I enjoyed this mystery--for me, Agatha Christie is an easier read, but also enjoyable because of her portrayal of her characters, and most particularly her detectives. She also has a tendency to be very subtle when leaving her clues. I often find myself pausing over the most trivial bits of information, wondering if there's more to them than the first glance would suggest. And then you have the famous Hercule Poirot, of the egg-shaped head and abundant "little gray cells," who is always an amusing character. In this story, the evidence is so stacked against Elinor, that you really wonder how in the world Poirot will find anything that suggests she might indeed be innocent. Christie has a knack of making you feel that way in most of her mysteries--all the evidence will point towards one person and then before you know it Hercule Poirot discovers the truth! This was one of those mysteries where I actually did figure out who it was, but even then Christie manages to throw in a twist to the story.

If you're looking for a relatively quick read and an engaging mystery, this is a good one to pick up!

My rating:

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