64. Cat Among the Pigeons (1959)

*Spoilers*

Hi Agatha,

As I finished this one a bit ago, my daughter said, "Has there ever been an Agatha book you didn't like?"  No, I don't think so.  Maybe some of the occultish stories weren't my favorite, but I just feel like you hit it out of the park every single time.

I enjoyed the setting of this one, a prestigious girls' school called Meadowbank.

I enjoyed the fact that the culprit was a woman - sorry if that's a spoiler, but it says so on the back of the book, and really, what can you expect from a cast that is 95% female?

I enjoyed the humor.  It can be subtle, but it always makes me smile.

I was so involved in the story that I was surprised at the appearance of Poirot 2/3 of the way through the book.  I had completely forgotten it was a Poirot novel, and even checked back at the front cover.  I thought one of the girls would solve the mystery (and pretty much one did).  But Hercules came to put all the threads together and wrap it all up.

There was a lot going on in this one plot-wise, and while I typically don't enjoy political, war-related, coup-related, whatever-type stuff, I did enjoy this, and was hoping until the very end that the prince and his pilot weren't really dead.

Now, Agatha, I'm off to read my final book for my reading challenge for 2021 - and it's set at Christmastime!  Christmas is three weeks from today!  Woot woot!

My heart is happy.  

b.

52. Three Blind Mice and Other Stories (1950)

{also published as The Mousetrap}

Agatha!  

How I loved "Three Blind Mice"!  I kept seeing it in my head as a brilliant play.  I Googled it to see if it had been done.  I'm an idiot.  I knew "Mousetrap" has been one of the longest-running plays in history in London and I have always wanted to see it - but it took until this morning to realize it's the same play.  Doh!

But...!  This was such a wonderful, fun read.  I loved every minute of it and now I doubly can't wait to see the play performed.  Someday...

Other stories -

With Jane Marple:

• "Strange Jest" 
• "Tape Measure Murder"
• "The Case of the Perfect Maid"
• "The Case of the Caretaker"

With Hercules Poirot:

• "The Third-Floor Flat"
• "The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly"
• "Four and Twenty Blackbirds"

And with Satterthwaite and Harley Quin:

• "The Love Detectives"

What a tremendous volume of stories, dear Agatha.  Obviously "Three Blind Mice" was my favorite, but I enjoyed every one of the others, too - even those strange birds Satterthwaite and Quin.

We are in a strange state of the world today, dear Agatha.  We are in the midst of a worldwide panic over the coronavirus pandemic.  I've never seen any reaction like this at all.  Schools closed, many, many businesses closed.  I'm not sure how I will navigate the next few weeks.  But one good thing about it - there will be lots of time for reading.  And I have lots of books.

Back soon,

b.

PS:  Another mystery...:

39. N or M? (1941)

Good morning, dear Agatha.

I finished this book a few days ago.  A nice ho-hum, uneventful, even pleasantly dull little book - until chapter 7.  I felt like you went from zero to 60 in that one chapter.  Suddenly things were moving.

War novels aren't my favorite, but funny enough I'm now reading All the Light We Cannot See for Loveland Loves to Read; the author is speaking here in town in a couple of weeks.  That said, the fact that there's a war in the background is about the only thing they have in common. :)

I love Tommy and Tuppence, and I've missed them.  I thought it was very creative and well done to bring them back, later in life, in a different chapter in history.  It felt right, if that makes sense.

And I love (although I'm worried about them because of their age) that at the end of the novel, these two people decided to adopt this little baby... essentially adopting from foster care, a system we've learned well in these last two years.

But, Agatha, what of this?

"No, if it isn't an accident, it must be loss of memory.  I believe that is far more common than is generally known, especially at times of stress like those we are living through now."

Uh huh.

A week until your birthday, Dame Agatha.  Mine was a few days ago.  Maybe next year we can do something together.  :)

b.

2. The Secret Adversary (1922)

Dear Agatha,

This was the most fun novel of yours I think I've read, at least in quite awhile. 

I remember starting a Tommy & Tuppence mystery before, but think I never finished it for some reason, and what little I remember about it made me not as eager to begin The Secret Adversary (I'm also not a big fan of spy / political conspiracy tales) - but I LOVED it! 

Did I figure it out?  Kind of.  I suspected the bad guy... but once again, talked myself out of it only to be surprised in the end that I was right.  Really a guess more than improvement of my little gray cells, I'm sure.  And I thought the end was coming much earlier than it did, so twisty and turny was your plot.

My favorite scene, I think, wasn't even about the mystery itself, but when Tuppence comes to terms with her feelings for Tommy, after declining a marriage proposal by Julius.  For some reason it reminded me of my Christianne:

"Fool," murmured Tuppence at length, making a grimace.  "Little fool.  Everything you want - everything you've ever hoped for, and you go and bleat out 'no' like an idiotic little sheep.  It's your one chance.  Why don't you take it?  Grab it?  Snatch at it?  What more do you want?"
          As if in answer to her own question, her eyes fell on a small snapshot of Tommy that stood on her dressing-table in a shabby frame.  For a moment she struggled for self-control, and then abandoning all pretense, she held it to her lips and burst into a fit of sobbing.
          "Oh, Tommy, Tommy," she cried, "I do love you so - and may never see you again..."
          At the end of five minutes Tuppence sat up, blew her nose, and pushed back her hair.
          "That's that," she observed sternly.  "Let's look facts in the face.  I seem to have fallen in love - with an idiot of a boy who probably doesn't care two straws about me." Here she paused.  "Anyway," she resumed, as though arguing with an unseen opponent, "I don't know that he does.  He'd never have dared to say so.  I've always jumped on sentiment - and here I am being more sentimental than anybody.  What idiots girls are!  I've always thought so.  I suppose I shall sleep with his photograph under my pillow, and dream about him all night.  It's dreadful to feel you've been false to your principles."

This is also the first book in a long time that I've stayed up late to finish, just because it was much fun.  And I can't wait to read more from The Young Adventurers.

Admiringly,
Beth