The Mystery of Three Quarters opens with a premise that immediately catches your attention. A woman Poirot has never met or even heard of for that matter approaches him demanding to know why he sent her a letter accusing her of murder. Then comes another man, again a stranger, who claims to have received a similar letter. Two more people arrive saying they both received letters from Poirot in which he accused them of murder. The thing is Poirot doesn’t know the man who was apparently murdered and he didn’t send the letters.
The Mystery of Three Quarters is Sophie Hannah’s third Hercule Poirot mystery but the first novel that is truly reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s Poirot. Hannah, it seems, has finally got everything about Poirot right, from his mannerisms to his oft-aggravated sense of self. But that’s about it.
Nothing about the plot or the narrative reminds you of flair with which Christie wrote her simple stories. The plot feels forced and the characters ill-developed, with many arbitrarily thrown in. And there’s just too much happening without any of it going anywhere.
Continuing Christie’s legacy is a herculean task and it’s easy to understand why the Agatha Christie estate chose Hannah for there could perhaps be no one better at cleverly building suspense and intrigue. Her books give you sleepless nights. Fans of Christie might rejoice at Poirot’s return but for those who have read Hannah and know just what she is capable of, The Mystery of Three Quarters falls flat. Having said that, as a crime novel Hannah’s third Poirot mystery is fine – definitely way better than her first.
All loose ends are neatly tied up in the end and the solution seems believable. We would definitely recommend this book as a light weekend read. Just don’t get your hopes up for it to be an immensely entertaining one.
| About the authors |
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Sophie Hannah is an internationally bestselling crime fiction writer. Her books have been translated into 34 languages and published in 51 countries. Before ‘The Mystery of Three Quarters’, Hannah published the ‘Monogram Murders’ and ‘Closed Casket’. |
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Agatha Christie, the ‘Queen of Mystery’ is the most widely published author of all time. Outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare, Christie’s books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in more than a hundred foreign languages |
Book: The Mystery of three quarters (Hercule Poirot Mysteries)
Authors: Sophie Hannah, Agatha Christie
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: August 2018
Language: English
Pages: 400, Paperback
