First Agatha Christie book: finished!
Since I never read any of her works, but only saw them in other media, I decide to start an Agatha Christie project and start with the first novel! I bought this ages ago in an antique book store. If the COVID situation began to ease up I would visit there again for more of the same series. Mass market paperbacks are the best, ya know? ;)
This story is a fairly quick read, with a decent amount of suspects and pretty tight plot. A rich old lady was murdered in her own bed. There are few parties that would benefit from her death, but who is the real killer? A classic set-up with lots of small details. I especially enjoy the small pieces of hand-drawn information scattered throughout the book, but some of them are, in my humble didn't-read-too-many-detective-stories-to-form-valid-point opinion, redundant. For example, the piece of envelope with a few possess on it, while sending a chilly feeling down your spine, doesn't really help with the investigation and never brought up again.
It was also very interesting to know that Hastings adored Sherlock Holmes and considered to become a private eye. As we all know now he's actually more of a non-living-together Dr. John Watson. The part where he proposed to one of the female characters reminded me strongly of Sign of Four.
!!!Spoiler alert!!!
And you know what, in the end I do feel like Hastings but slightly a bit smarter-I didn't let my emotions for any female characters led me on. Nevertheless it's still a defeated feeling that I didn't get the real murderer. I guess I had been reading too much Detective Conan manga to instantly not suspect the real culprit, Mr. Inglethrop, and his accomplice, Ms. Howard. Well, one is the most obvious suspect (from what I know in Detective Conan the person who is immediately suspected must be framed), the other had impeccable alibi and no motives. But surprise, surprise, they were working together all this time!! I feel in order to read more of her works I need to step away from the detective story formula I became familiar with during the years.
！！有剧透！！
这是阿加莎·克雷斯蒂的处女作，也是我读的第一本阿婆的书。这本书在她所有作品里评价还算是不错的，我也认为作为一部处女作手法也是很优秀了。
故事本身讲的就是一个富有的老太太被杀，继子、儿媳、小狼狗以及寄人篱下的客人都有嫌疑。Hastings在故事里说自己想成为福尔摩斯那样优秀的侦探，结果被俏皮的波罗蒙在鼓里最终还是成为了华生。
因为我之前看过的侦探小说并不多，福尔摩斯系列看了80%的样子而且很多其实只是找人/找东西的案件，并非命案。所以在“通过阅读小说找线索抓凶手”这方面我还不是很熟练。倒是名侦探柯南，高中时读到了单行本第50卷还是多少卷，TV版剧场版也没少看来着。根据柯南里的思路，最像凶手的肯定不会是凶手（而是因为某些缘故被真凶陷害的）。所以我第一个就排除了小狼狗，中间波罗还给小狼狗洗脱罪名，让我更加确信应该是“装得”很无辜很愤慨的大儿子。因为小狼狗的出现使他本能继承到的大笔遗产打了水漂。而且之前还出现了一个关于遗嘱的红鲱鱼，让我更加确信这是大儿子为了遗产而设下的一石二鸟之计。
最终的凶手揭晓出来居然真是小狼狗，而且还有看似非常正直、并且有铁证如山般的不在场证明的帮凶。意不意外，刺不刺激。也许真的应该一张白纸一样，不要把自己代入柯南方程式里来读阿婆的书，会比较好~
