Top Ten Hercule Poirot Murder Mysteries

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

It's a Halloween freebie! In past years I've done books to read to get in the Halloween spirit, suspenseful novels, characters I'd be for Halloween, and horror novels on my TBR list, so I was running out of ideas! However, this year I completed my goal of reading all the Hercule Poirot books and I've been wanting to share my top ten favorites, and I thought this might be a good time of year to share these murder mystery recommendations.

I included the five that I gave 5 or 4.5 stars, and then of all the ones I gave 4 stars to, I couldn't decide how to narrow it down, so I picked the five that had the highest rating on Goodreads. (Ironically, this means I included one 4-star one where I literally wrote in my review, "I wouldn't put this in the top 10 of Poirot novels, but it's still worth reading!")

One note: Agatha Christie wrote these books over a span of 55 years. The first Poirot novel came out in 1920, and Christie was very much a product of her times. A few, like Hickory Dickory Dock, include characters who are painfully stereotypical by race or nationality, and most of her books for the first few decades included at least one line that could be considered racist or anti-Semitic. It's not until the 60s and 70s that she moved instead to having her characters awkwardly criticize men's long hair and feminine fashion. So just... be prepared for that.

1. The ABC Murders
This one has a mix of the traditional — Poirot being clever, Hastings being confused — with a different structure and a different type of killer than usual. Rather than the typical closed-circle mystery (which guest at the mansion did it?) this is a serial killer who's targeting victims in order of the alphabet: Alice Ascher of Andover, Betty Barnard of Bexhill-on-Sea, etc. How far into the alphabet will he get before he's stopped?

2. Cards on the Table
Poirot is invited to a dinner party along with four individuals who, according to the host, have each gotten away with a murder in the past. When the host is murdered, Poirot's usual approach of figuring out who has the psychological profile to be a murderer is challenged by the idea that all the suspects may have already committed murder at least once! This one is super-twisty and one of my top three favorites.

3. The Clocks
This is another one that's not a closed-circle mystery, and it has an unusual and delightfully creepy premise. A stenographer is summoned to a house where no one's home but a murdered man no one can identify, and a bunch of clocks have been placed around the room all showing the same, wrong time. Where does one begin?

4. Curtain
The final mystery! Poirot's bumbling sidekick, Hastings, must figure out what happened after Poirot himself finally dies. In a nice bit of nostalgia, it takes place in the same house as the very first Poirot mystery.

5. Death on the Nile
This was one of the original books back in middle school that turned me into a Poirot fan. On rereading, I was glad to find it was just as enjoyable and twisty as I remembered. It has all the best parts of a Poirot mystery — the psychology, the unexpected twists, the side romances — and no Hastings!

6. Five Little Pigs
Poirot tackles a 16-year-old closed case that seems clear-cut: The person found guilty had motive and means and all the evidence pointed against her. And yet — is everything as it seemed? Even after all that time, Poirot can still get to the bottom of things.

7. Lord Edgware Dies
What I enjoy most about Christie's mysteries is that I can usually put together many of the clues, but I still can't ever fit the final pieces in to solve it. This is one where I had an idea of where it was going, but the biggest piece of the puzzle never even occurred to me. When she can accomplish that without straining credulity, it's an enjoyable read.

8. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
This one is a classic, and for good reason! There's not much I can say without spoilers, but it definitely takes a different approach than most of her books.

9. The Mysterious Affair at Styles
I kind of thought Christie might have needed to warm up to some of her better plot twists, but this very first Poirot mystery packs a punch and kept me guessing until the end. Hastings is at his most irritating and ignorant here, but it's still a solid introduction to Poirot and his crime-solving skills.

10. Peril at End House
This includes one of my very favorite twists of the Poirot mysteries. I was convinced I'd figured out the mystery, and then it turned out that what I'd figured out was just a tiny piece of the puzzle — Christie fooled me again, though as usual the clues were all there. Things go off the rails a bit at the end, but I still really liked it.

Have you read any of the Hercule Poirot mysteries? Do you have a favorite?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: The Secret History and Birdsong
Five years ago I was reading: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Roots
Ten years ago I was reading: Black Boy

Top Ten Characters I'd Be for Halloween

I'm linking up with The Broke and the Bookish for another Top Ten Tuesday.

After I posted my recommendations for suspenseful novels last year, I realized that I'd actually participated in the TTT Halloween Freebie the year before... and recommended several of the same books. So I am not going to make that mistake again! I'm choosing a totally different take on the theme this year.

In looking for ideas for literary Halloween costumes, I determined that there are really only a couple of options if you want anyone to recognize your costume. You can pick a character from an illustrated children's book, you can pick a book that has been turned into a TV show or movie and dress the way a character is portrayed on screen, or in more rare instances you can find a character who is depicted in a memorable way on the book cover and also (usually) described in detail in the book. That's about it.

Given those constraints, here are the characters I would consider being for Halloween, assuming I had the money and/or creativity to buy or create a costume...

1. Anne (from Anne of Green Gables)
I once dressed up as Anne to give an oral book report about this book in 6th grade. My hair is no longer red enough or long enough to look like her, though (nor am I a child anymore), so maybe I could try the more mature look from Anne of Avonlea?

2. Hermione Granger (from the Harry Potter series)
I did dress up as Hermione for a Harry Potter party one time in college — I do have the hair for Hermione — so I could definitely pull this one out again if needed. My master's graduation gown would make an even better Hogwarts robe than I had back then.

3. Kate Wetherall (from The Mysterious Benedict Society)
I was only introduced to this series last year as an adult, or I would have totally been Kate for Halloween years ago. Even with her iconic red bucket, though, I don't know that many people would recognize this character.

4. Mary Poppins (from Mary Poppins)
This is a case where the most recognizable version of the costume definitely comes more from the movie, but that's OK — the character's better in the movie anyway.

5. The Mathemagician (from The Phantom Tollbooth)
As much as I love to read, I also love data, so I could certainly be at home in the King of Digitopolis' numerical robe with his giant magical pencil.

6. Matilda (from Matilda)
I adore both this book and this movie, and her movie look is recognizable enough that this could be a great costume, especially if you pull around a red wagon full of books!

7. Miss Nogard (from Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger)
Here's one that definitely no one would get, but I would still do it because she's probably my favorite character from the goofy Wayside School series. She's identifiable by the third ear on top of her head that lets her read people's minds!

8. Polgara (from the Belgariad series)
One Halloween when I was in middle school my friends and I all dressed up as characters from this series because we were (are) nerds. We all had assigned ourselves various characters that were related to people's personalities and looks and who was going out with whom at the time. I was Velvet, who is one of my favorite characters but does not have anything in the way of a recognizable costume, so if I were going to be a character from the series again, I'd pick Polgara.

9. Sherlock Holmes (from The Complete Sherlock Holmes)
Here's a literary character with a well-known look! You just need the hat, coat, and pipe, and everyone will know who you are.

10. Strega Nona (from Strega Nona)
This is one of my favorite children's books, and I was disappointed after getting a copy for my toddler to realize that it's way too long for his current attention span. For this costume I would channel my Italian roots to dress as this Calabrian "granny" and carry around a pot of never-ending pasta :)

Which characters would you be for Halloween?

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Top Ten Suspenseful Novels

I'm linking up with The Broke and the Bookish for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week's theme is anything Halloween-related, and while I tend to steer away from anything scary (my recent recommendation of The Girl with All the Gifts notwithstanding) I do love mysteries, and there tend to be enough dead bodies in those books to satisfy the Halloween ambiance.

These aren't all strictly mysteries in the detective/crime-solving sense, but they do all have that kind of pattern of suspense/reveal to some extent. And there are quite a lot of dead bodies between them.

1. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
I debated which of the many Christie books to recommend, but this one seemed most appropriate as it doesn't involve any of Christie's famous detectives; it's just a straight-up terror-filled murder mystery, as guests on an island are picked off one by one.

2. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
Each successive Robert Langdon book seems to me to go down in quality, but this one, the original, is still excellent. As the top candidates for the next pope are killed one by one, Robert — and the reader — have to figure out who is a friend and who is the enemy.

3. The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Most of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries are so short that it's worth tackling the whole volume if you really want the experience. No list of classic mysteries would be complete without Conan Doyle's detective, and for good reason. Each story is a new adventure in deductive reasoning and crime solving.

4. Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas
Told in out-of-sequence snippets meant to keep the reader guessing until the very end, this tribute to the Natalee Holloway and Amanda Knox cases is suspenseful and unnerving as we follow the case of a girl accused of killing her best friend while on vacation.

5. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
This is one of those that maybe can't be categorized as a classic mystery novel, but a pair of unreliable narrators and a trail of clues create mounting suspense and ultimately lead to a trip into the worst of human psychopathy.

6. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
As far as I can remember, there aren't any dead bodies in this one, but there is a mysterious theft, a series of clues, and a collection of intriguing and semi-unreliable narrators through whom the events of a single night are painstakingly pieced together.

7. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
This one is not nearly as dark as the others, but it still contains lots of mystery and a series of clues. The fact that an unprofitable bookstore is the cover for a secret organization is only the beginning.

8. The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
Here's a mystery with a dash of the supernatural. Someone is replicating Jack the Ripper's killings in London, but the security cameras show no one's there. So who's doing the killing, and why? (Also, when is the next book in the series coming out already?)

9. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
I read this a very long time ago, so about all I remember about it is 1) it's creepy, 2) there's a woman who died, possibly under mysterious circumstances, and 3) I enjoyed the book. Even if it's not quite a mystery, it definitely seems like an appropriate Halloween read.

10. The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
The Cormoran Strike books are good old-fashioned detective stories, and I preferred this second one to the first. It has death, clues, and a final confrontation of the killer. (Also, why did no one tell me the third book was just released?)

What are your favorite mysteries, or other suspenseful books?

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Top Ten Books To Read To Get In The Halloween Spirit

I'm linking up with The Broke and the Bookish for another Top Ten Tuesday.

I am not a fan of scary things. I completely identify as an HSP who cannot handle scary movies or TV shows, and I even steer clear of books that have the potential to freak me out too much. However, I was able to come up with ten books I've read that have spooky, creepy, or bizarre elements that fit right in to the Halloween season.

1. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
Murder mysteries fit right into the eerie spirit of Halloween, and Christie writes some of the best. This one is a classic — ten guests in an island mansion are picked off one by one as they desperately try to figure out which of them is the murderer. Unlike many of her other books, there is no detective in charge — just a group of isolated, scared people trying to keep themselves alive.

2. Every Day by David Levithan
This is a great YA book and a well-written, unique story that managed to creep me the f--- out. "A" wakes up in a different person's body every single day. Is A a person? a spirit? a parasite? A is a sympathetic character, but would you want A inhabiting your body for a day?

3. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
I just reread this for book club, and it's excellent on audiobook. It's a bit less dramatic than the movies it's spawned — everything's told in retrospect as long letters and stories — but the central idea is still an original and creepy one. Frankenstein has created a gigantic being and let it loose in the world, and now he has no ability to stop it.

4. Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Al and Lil Binewski intentionally try to birth children who are deformed, odd, or otherwise abnormal in order to populate the circus they run with sideshow freaks. As their children grow, a bunch of weird and creepy events ensue, including the formation of a cult where people get amputations to be more like the flipper-limbed Arty. If the embracing of the bizarre is your favorite part of Halloween, this book will get you in the spirit for sure.

5. Macbeth by William Shakespeare
I've seen several people recommend Hamlet as a Halloween-type book, and I can see that, what with ghosts and a creepy murderer uncle and lots of people dying. But I think Macbeth better fits the bill for something spooky, with witches, prophecy, murder, and the psychological aftereffects. And then there's the way Macbeth has taken on a life of its own within the theater so that people will only refer to "the Scottish play" lest they bring the supposed curse upon them and their theater company.

6. The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
Someone is repeating Jack the Ripper's killing spree, but no one can see the killer — unless, like the protagonist, they've had a near-death experience. How do you stop a ghost before he commits another gruesome murder?

7. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
I told you I'm not a fan of scary things, and I'm not, but my brother had this book growing up and so I managed to read or hear all these stories at one time or another. If nothing will get you in the Halloween spirit but good old-fashioned scary stories, you can't beat this classic collection of them.

8. Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach
I love Roach's journalistic investigations into areas of science we don't normally hear about, and this is no exception. It covers the study of ghosts, near-death experiences, mediums, ectoplasm, and much more.

9. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Another classic horror novel whose telling is less exciting than the concept, but which is still worth the read. Dr. Jekyll experiments on himself and manages to unleash an entirely different personality, someone who has no morality or empathy whatsoever. It's scariest because of the implications that everyone has these darker elements within them somewhere.

10. The Witches by Roald Dahl
We all know what witches look like... or do we? According to this great book by the classic children's author, witches are real and hiding in plain sight. But there are some clues you can use to spot them...

What types of stories most get you in the Halloween spirit? Scary? Creepy? Bizarre? Gory? Dark?

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