Tag: Addition

Agatha Christie – Third Girl | Review

Title: Third Girl

Author: Agatha Christie

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 224

Rating: 3.75/5

This book was fun, the first Christie novel that I’ve picked up for a little while now and really just the ticket considering Ariadne Oliver is one of my favourite of Christie’s characters. It also has the kind of setup that I like, where the main witness to the crime doesn’t really know what it was that she saw.

The only thing that I would say is that this one is just pretty competent. There’s a reason why I’ve never really seen anyone talk about it, why I hadn’t come across it in a charity shop and why it took me so long to finally end up with a copy.

So would I recommend it? Yeah, probably. It’s a good little addition to the Poirot series and features the old detective as an older man, to the point at which the story almost doesn’t happen because someone thinks he’s too old to be able to help them out.

The only real problem is that it doesn’t excel in any way. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that Ariadne Oliver is in it, it would mostly be forgettable, but Mrs Oliver is so cool that I’m always happy whenever she shows up in a story.

Learn more about Third Girl.


Peter James – Need You Dead | Review

Title: Need You Dead

Author: Peter James

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 502

Rating 4/5

It’s been a while since I’ve read a full-length Peter James novel, although I picked up The Perfect Murder, a standalone novella, towards the middle of last month. I actually picked this one up because I filmed a YouTube video where my cat picks my TBR, and this is one of the books that Biggie chose.

The story here follows an investigation into a murder where there are a bunch of different suspects, some of them more plausible than others. We also get an insight into what happens when the police are forced to investigate one of their own. Peter James does a hell of a lot of research and so you can bet that the stories he tells are grounded in reality.

This is also a relatively recent addition to the Roy Grace series, and while you can read the books as standalones, it’s a better idea to read them in order if you can. Don’t do what I did and just pick them up from charity shops as and when you see them because you can end up spoiling yourself on some of the backstory that’s continuing to develop alongside each of the cases that the Brighton police force takes on.

For example, in this book, Roy Grace has to deal with an important funeral and he also ends up basically taking in a son that he didn’t know he had. That also reminds me that there were a few bits that didn’t quite tie up here, like the fact that the assistant commissioner can speak German but isn’t comfortable with Grace knowing that. I can only assume that he’ll deal with it in a future release, and I look forward to finding what it’s all about.

As for this book, I don’t think it’s James’ best and there were a couple of points at which my mind started to wander and I wasn’t wholly absorbed by the story. With that said, on the whole I thought it was still pretty good, and it can only be a good sign that it only took me a couple of days to read it. And I would of course recommend it, but I’d also suggest following the series in order if you can.

Peter James is also an approachable guy on social media, and he even has a YouTube channel where he interviews other authors and talks about his books. It’s through his Instagram that I learned that he has his own chickens, and it was pretty cool to see that Roy Grace has them, too. I think the main thing that I like about reading Peter James is that you can see how his real life experiences go into his writing, and I feel like I can learn from it.

If you haven’t read any Peter James – and any of his Roy Grace books in particular – you should.

Click here to buy Need You Dead.