Reviewing novels, short stories, plays and non fiction.
Pizza Girl, by Jean Kyoung Frazier, is a coming of age novel following a nameless 18 year old Korean American woman working in a pizza place. Her life changes when a struggling stay at home mother called Jenny calls in to her work, looking for a pizza with pickles…
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Evil Under the Sun, by Agatha Christie, is another Poirot novel, published in 1941. Poirot attempts a pleasant summer holiday in Devon, and once again encounters love, lust and evil at a classic seaside resort hotel.
The premise is a similar but better version of Triangle at Rhodes. Its TV adaptation is my second favourite of the series, after Death on the Nile.
Human Is, by Philip K Dick, is one of my favourite short stories. I re-read it recently as part of the Electric Dreams anthology, with prefaces by the writers who adapted various short stories for TV. It examines McCarthy style witch hunts, authoritarian states and what it means to be human.
Body in the Library by Agatha Christie is an entertaining murder mystery with a lot of twists and turns. Plus an ending I did not see coming, from the queen of misdirection. This Miss Marple classic was published in 1942.
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Blackfish City, by Sam J. Miller, tells of a flooded future world, where a mysterious woman arrives in the floating Arctic city of Qaanaaq. Accompanied by an orca and a polar bear, she is one of the elusive and hunted few who have nano-bonded with animals. Her arrival shakes a city already struggling under the weight of corruption, organised crime, and a mysterious disease called the breaks…
In Death on the Nile, by Agatha Christie, yet another of Poirot’s holidays is disrupted by murder, mystery, intrigue, jealousy and romance. This classic murder mystery detective story is set aboard a the Karnak steamer, exploring the darkness and beauty of the River Nile.
The Big Four by Agatha Christie is a Poirot with a spy twist. Poirot finds himself plunged into a world of international intrigue and even encounters the mysterious Countess Vera Rossakoff. A tale of mystery, intrigue, explosions and lost love.
In Agatha Christie’s first published mystery, and the first Hercule Poirot novel, a brisk older woman, Mrs Inglethorp, has been murdered in Essex. Hastings has been invalided out of the army and decides to visit his old friend, John Cavendish, her stepson, at their country estate.
Continue reading “The Mysterious Affair At Styles by Agatha Christie”
How to Marry a Werewolf by Gail Carriger charts the adventures of eccentric geologist Faith Wigglesworth, as she heads to London after an indiscretion, to find a werewolf husband.
The monsters left Faith ruined in the eyes of society, so now they’re her only option. Rejected by her family, Faith crosses the Atlantic, looking for a marriage of convenience and revenge.
At a cheap hotel in Mexico, defrocked priest Lawrence Shannon clashes with bawdy hotel owner Maxine Faulk, and meets a saintly seeming drifter and artist, Hannah Jelkes, travelling with her elderly grandfather. Fever, stormy weather and lust wrack this Southern Gothic play by Tennessee Williams.
Continue reading “Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams”
