I went straight from reading Blyton’s Famous Five books to Agatha Christie and it is decades and decades since I read any of her mysteries (apart from a slim volume called Black Coffee which was originally a play and was worked up into a book by Charles Osborne.)

I’ve seen quite a few people have been reading Christie so when I saw this one in my library I thought I would give it a go and see if I still found her work to be enjoyable. It was quite a surprise to me that I did enjoy this one as I had read a few snidey newspaper articles, basically saying her books were only for those of little intelligence and even smaller vocabulary. I had seen a version of this book dramatised for TV but I think it was quite different from the book. You’ve probably seen it too but the book is still worth reading. It’s a Poirot and Hastings book, the tale being told by Hastings and of course Inspector Japp pops up too, but his character is somewhat less chummy and amusing than the Japp of TV fame.

I thought that crime fiction fans might be interested to read the William McIlvanney article which appeared in today’s Guardian. I loved his books when they were first published in the 1970s. He managed to capture the atmosphere of Glasgow in print, which is more than can be said of Denise Mina whose books are set in Glasgow but are completely devoid of any Glaswegian class, gallusness and banter, something which I find unforgivable as a Glaswegian myself. McIlvanney is apparently the forgotten man of Tartan Noir, what a shame. He inspired Ian Rankin to write his Rebus series, transferring the setting to Edinburgh, the city which he has experience of.