Set sail for murder

Thursday, December 31, 2015

The Monogram Murders: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery by Sophie Hannah

Hercule Poirot meets a young woman in distress at Pleasant's Coffee House in London on a Thursday evening. He goes there because they have the best coffee in London. He worries about Jennie all through the book, sure that she is tied to the murders discovered at the Bloxham Hotel, the case of Edward Catchpool, a policeman friend of Mr. Poirot's from Scotland Yard. Catchpool is the narrator of the story. Poirot helps the investigation by asking all the right questions and by using his little gray cells. All through the book he is trying to educate Catchpool in the ways of detection. Three people are murdered in the Bloxham Hotel, all from the same small village, all found in their own rooms, poisoned. Hannah does an excellent job of recreating the 1930's London so familiar to readers of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot mysteries. It was a good read and had me guessing to the end.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

I always enjoy a historical fiction based on real people's lives. This was a surprise to me as I thought when I started it that the book was all fiction. I liked how Sue Monk Kidd told at the end what parts she re-imagined and what parts were based on actual facts from letters and journals. As she was writing about authors from the 1830's this helped to make the story more authentic. Slave narratives are difficult for me to read, but the story was well-written and I kept up with the story, even though I had wanted to quit when the story became too gruesome. It's amazing how abolitionists became women suffragettes, fighting for the rights of women and slaves both. Amazing that these women wrote about slavery before Uncle Tom's Cabin was published. I liked reading about the bravery of these two sisters. This would make a good movie.