ABC Murders - Book Review

 At a Glance....

Title: ABC Murders
Author: Agatha Christie
Publisher: Harper Collins
Pages:331
Genre :Mystery / Fiction
Format - Paperback
ISBN 13 -978-0-00-728245-6



After a really long time, I am reading one of Agatha Christie's novel. As always I enjoyed reading this Mystery / Thriller novel..And as always,Hercules Poirot teams with Hastings and solve a crime,or rather a series of crimes.

As the name suggests this books has around 4 murders.And the people murdered have a similarity - it goes on in alphabetical order. That much is easy to figure out through the title.

The story starts with Poirot receiving type written letter from one Mr.ABC informing him about the date and place of murders that are about to happen. At first he does not take them seriously but later he is forced to look into the matter when Alice Ascher, an aged shop keeper at Andover is found murdered in her shop and there is an ABC railway guide on teh counter.

This pattern continues with Betty Bernard at Bexhill, Sir Carmichael Clarke at Churston found murdered and before their murders,Poirot receives the same sort of letters with the date and place!!

Wanting to avoid the murder forth time round, he forms a special legion with the family / relatives of the previously murdered people.They all go to Danver to try and stop the murder or catch Mr. ABC but fail miserably when another person is found murdered at the theater!

While all this is going on, we read about Mr. Alexander Bonaparte Cust,a war veteran with head injury and epilepsy who is also a stocking salesman. Just around the time the fourth murder takes place, Cust's landlady's daughter and fiance suspect the murderer to be their tenant.

Soon everything points to Mr. Alexander Bonaparte Cust as the cold blooded murderer and when he is arrested, he accepts to the crimes.

Even then Poirot believes that he is not the murderer and silently and in his own method works out to find out if Mr. Alexander Bonaparte Cust is the murderer or not.

What I liked about this book:

It is an Agatha Christie Mystery / Thriller, so what is not to like! But if we are looking at something apart from that, then read on..

It has you hooked on right from the time Poirot talks about the letter to Hastings. It is a page turner for sure!The thrill increases with each murder and most of the times I felt I knew who the murderer was.And as usual AC proves there is a twist to the ending!!

A very good read that can be finished in a day or two.Go for it...


Linking this to:

1. Alphabet Sour Reading Challenge
2. 52 books in 52 weeks
3. Mount TBR Reading Challenge
4. Review Writing Challenge

Until Next post