Tag: Beat The Backlist 2020

A Torch Against the Night

Laura1 Comment on A Torch Against the Night
A Torch Against the Night
,

, Book # 2
Razorbill
August 30 2016
eBook
456
English
December 2, 2020 December 21, 2020

Elias and Laia are running for their lives. After the events of the Fourth Trial, Martial soldiers hunt the two fugitives as they flee the city of Serra and undertake a perilous journey through the heart of the Empire.

Laia is determined to break into Kauf—the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prison—to save her brother, who is the key to the Scholars’ survival. And Elias is determined to help Laia succeed, even if it means giving up his last chance at freedom.

But dark forces, human and otherworldly, work against Laia and Elias. The pair must fight every step of the way to outsmart their enemies: the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and, most heartbreaking of all, Helene—Elias’s former friend and the Empire’s newest Blood Shrike.

Bound to Marcus’s will, Helene faces a torturous mission of her own—one that might destroy her: find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape…and kill them both.

About the book

A Torch Against the Night is the second volume in the series entitled An Ember in the Ashes. It begins where the first book ended with the escape of Laia and Elias from Blackcliff. The two will find themselves hunted by enemies as they try to reach Kauf’s prison to free Laia’s brother. On the way they will meet friends and enemies who will help them in their adventure.

The story is developed through different points of view and the most interesting in my opinion is Elias’. But Helene’s is also not bad.

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The Big Four

Laura2 Comments on The Big Four
The Big Four
,

, Book # 5
HarperCollinsPublishers
January 27th 1927
Paperback
272
English
December 11, 2020 December 17, 2020

Framed in the doorway of Poirot’s bedroom stood an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust. The man’s gaunt face stared for a moment, then he swayed and fell. Who was he? Was he suffering from shock or just exhaustion? Above all, what was the significance of the figure 4, scribbled over and over again on a sheet of paper? Poirot finds himself plunged into a world of international intrigue, risking his life to uncover the truth about ‘Number Four’.

About the book

The Big Four is the fifth book in the series. Hastings returns from South America and finds Poirot leaving. By a fortuitous event Poirot is leaving for South America pushed by a rich man to accept a case overseas. The arrival of Hastings blocks everything. Poirot realises that there is an organisation that is trying to get rid of him in order to dominate the world. This organisation is called The Big Four.

Amidst various murders and incidents Poirot realises that all are linked by these four individuals and tries to find their identity.

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The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Laura3 Comments on The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
,

, Book # 4
William Morrow Paperbacks
1926
Paperback
286
English
December 7, 2020 December 11, 2020

Voted by the British Crime Writers’ Association as the "Best Crime Novel of all Time"

Hercule Poirot comes out of retirement in one of Agatha Christie’s ten favorite novels, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected also that someone had been blackmailing her. Then, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with an apparent drug overdose.

However the evening post brought Roger one last fatal scrap of information, but before he could finish reading the letter, he was stabbed to death. Luckily one of Roger’s friends and the newest resident to retire to this normally quiet village takes over—none other than Monsieur Hercule Poirot.

About the book

First book I read dedicated to Poirot in which there is no Hastings :( . The narrator is a country doctor (from a village called King’s Abbot) who is first called to the scene of an apparent suicide and then, a few days later , gets a rather strange phona call. This doctor, Sheppard has a peculiar neighbour and a very gossipy sister who believes the neighbour is a retired hairdresser. In reality it is Poirot who has retired to the country after a lifetime of investigating.

Poirot is called into question when the richest man in the country (Roger Ackroyd) is murdered after reading a letter about a blackmail against a woman known to him and who committed suicide a few days earlier. In addition, the doctor. right before discovering the body, receives a phone call announcing the death of Ackroyd.

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Poirot Investigates

Laura5 Comments on Poirot Investigates
Poirot Investigates
,

, Book # 3
Harper
1924
Paperback
265
English
August 17, 2020 December 1, 2020

The very first collection of superb short stories featuring Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings…

First there was the mystery of the film star and the diamond… then came the ‘suicide’ that was murder… the mystery of the absurdly cheap flat… a suspicious death in a locked gun-room… a million dollar bond robbery… the curse of a pharaoh’s tomb… a jewel robbery by the sea… the abduction of a Prime Minister… the disappearance of a banker… a phone call from a dying man… and, finally, the mystery of the missing will.

What links these fascinating cases? Only the brilliant deductive powers of Hercule Poirot! Get ready for:
1. The Adventure of The Western Star
2. The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor
3. The Adventure of The Cheap Flat
4. The Mystery of Hunter's Lodge
5. The Million Dollar Bond Robbery
6. The Adventure of The Egyptian Tomb
7. The Jewel Robbery at The Grand Metropolitan
8. The Kidnapped Prime Minister
9. The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim
10. The Adventure of The Italian Nobleman
11. The Case of The Missing Will.

It should be noted that the above stories are the contents of the original UK edition. The American edition, which came out a year later in 1925, had three extras and more Hercule Poirot. They are:
12. The Veiled Lady
13. The Lost Mine
14. The Chocolate Box.

About the book

This third book dedicated to Hercule Poirot is a collection of short stories that never finds a super positive vote on my part. In fact, I don’t like collections that much, usually cases are too hasty and the solutions are too obvious and easy as if nothing had happened and even here I must say that the investigative part is not so present (as it should be since they are short stories and therefore should not be long).

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The Hound of the Baskervilles

Laura1 Comment on The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles

, Book # 5
Signet
August 1901
Paperback
256
English
November 25, 2020 December 27, 2020

We owe The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) to Arthur Conan Doyle's good friend Fletcher "Bobbles" Robinson, who took him to visit some scary English moors and prehistoric ruins, and told him marvelous local legends about escaped prisoners and a 17th-century aristocrat who fell afoul of the family dog. Doyle transmogrified the legend: generations ago, a hound of hell tore out the throat of devilish Hugo Baskerville on the moonlit moor. Poor, accursed Baskerville Hall now has another mysterious death: that of Sir Charles Baskerville. Could the culprit somehow be mixed up with secretive servant Barrymore, history-obsessed Dr. Frankland, butterfly-chasing Stapleton, or Selden, the Notting Hill murderer at large? Someone's been signaling with candles from the mansion's windows. Nor can supernatural forces be ruled out. Can Dr. Watson--left alone by Sherlock Holmes to sleuth in fear for much of the novel--save the next Baskerville, Sir Henry, from the hound's fangs?

About the book

The Hound of the Baskervilles is perhaps Doyle’s most famous book. And I have to say that it is the one that I liked most. We finally get to know Mortimer and I must advise against reading the books in the order that Goodreads says to read them. Read the anthologies of short stories after the novels. Unfortunately in the anthologies there are references to Mortimer that come out of nowhere and therefore the story is not known. Indeed, it is not known even now after reading a novel with him as the protagonist (or almost).

Be that as it may, the book is about an old legend or curse that all Baskervilles are forced to endure. But Sherlock doesn’t believe in curses and therefore tries to find out what’s behind this rumour.

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