Tag: Agency

Agatha Christie – Partners in Crime | Review

Title: Partners in Crime

Author: Agatha Christie

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 352

Rating: 3.5/5

 

Agatha Christie - Partners in Crime

Agatha Christie – Partners in Crime

 

What we have here is one of Agatha Christie’s Tommy and Tuppence books, and so as such it’s not as good as some of Christie’s other work. I don’t think this should be discounted entirely though, because it’s an enjoyable enough read and I like the way that it was almost a cross between a novel and a short story collection.

Here, Tommy and Tuppence basically team up to form their own detective agency and then we follow them as they go from case to case. Some of them interrelate and some of them don’t, and some of them are much easier to figure out than others, but it’s still enjoyable enough. Plus I quite often found that the banter between Tommy and Tuppence was good enough to make the book worth reading in its own right.

That’s because the two of them were playing a game of sorts where they pretended to be detectives from their favourite crime novels, which means that Christie gets to play with tropes, reference Sherlock Holmes and even throw in subtle nods to her own novels, such as that certain Belgian detective with the little grey cells.
 

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie


 

At the same time, though, I also went through the last couple of hundred pages in a pretty much a blur, purely because it wasn’t holding my attention. It was okay, it just wasn’t the best, and it was nowhere near as good as the Miss Marple short stories, but it was still worth reading and I’m glad I can tick it off my list. The Tommy and Tuppence books are nowhere near as bad as people make them out to be, and they have a certain charm of their own that’s different to the Poirot and Marple books and which is almost like trying a slightly different flavour of a drink that you’ve always loved.

So should you read this? Absolutely, but only when you’ve already read a couple of dozen Agatha Christie books already. So yeah.

 

Agatha Christie Quote

Agatha Christie Quote

 

Click here to buy Partners in Crime.


Julia Suzuki – Yoshiko and the Gift of Charms | Review

Title: Yoshiko and the Gift of Charms

Author: Julia Suzuki

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 282

Rating: 8/10

 

Julia Suzuki - Yoshiko and the Gift of Charms

Julia Suzuki – Yoshiko and the Gift of Charms

 

Disclaimer: Julia is a former client of mine from back in the day, when I worked at a PR agency.

Yoshiko and the Gift of Charms is a gorgeous little book that tells the story of a young dragon called Yoshiko, who gets shunned by his peers but whose unique set of talents come through and help him to overcome adversity. As such, it’s great for teaching kids about bullying, and why they shouldn’t do it – I think it’s a noble mission, and one that’s a conscious decision by Suzuki.

My copy is one of the early incarnations, and I think it’s been re-released several times since then, which is a good thing – it was already a good book when I had it, and I can only imagine that subsequent iterations have helped to refine it even further. Really, this was one of the first books that I read that was written by someone I know and which didn’t show any hallmarks of being unprofessional – everything, from the cover and the editing to the marketing (after all, we were hired) and the website presence was awesome. I’m not sure if it’s the same now, but there used to be a lot of interactivity, and you could find out a bunch of stuff about the world, including which clan you’d belong to.

Overall, then, this is a lot of fun, and a great read for children of all ages – older kids will be able to read it by themselves, which is the most fun of all!

 

Julia Suzuki

Julia Suzuki

 

Click here to buy Yoshiko and the Gift of Charms.