The Thirteen Problems
Crime, Mystery
Agatha Christie
Miss Mapple, Book # 2
Harper
June 1932
Paperback
315
English
November 5, 2019 November 8, 2019
One Tuesday evening a group gathers at Miss Marple’s house and the conversation turns to unsolved crimes…
The case of the disappearing bloodstains; the thief who committed his crime twice over; the message on the death-bed of a poisoned man which read ‘heap of fish’; the strange case of the invisible will; a spiritualist who warned that ‘Blue Geranium’ meant death…
Now pit your wits against the powers of deduction of the ‘Tuesday Night Club’.
About the book
Fourth Agatha Christie’s book that I read and I need to say that this is the one that I liked the most. I think I’m going to read other Agatha’s books now that my “Italian publisher”, Mondadori, is publishing the books again with the covers that I like.
Anyway, this book is like the Decameron by Boccaccio in which a group of people are in the same room and everyone tells a story. In this case they are detective stories (and they aren’t escaping the plague) and each person tells her/his story and the others need to find out the culprit. Obviously Miss Marple finds out everything.
I’m not going to write about each “problem”, because each story is a chapter, they are 13 and they are short so it is nice to find out about them. The structure of the book is nice, having a case each chapter makes the reading fast and flowing. Yes, the cases are very simple and I found out about the culprit quite soon just like Miss Marple, but this is also an enjoyment, al least in my opinion.
The 13th case is the easiest of the bunch and it’s the only one not told by the group of people but it happens the day after the meeting. Miss Marple is the funniest little lady I’ve ever read about.
So, I’m happy I’ve read this book and the others by Christie even if I didn’t like the others as much as this one. But anyway I’ve finally 4 books less in my TBR, yes! and I spent some easy afternoon after reading heavy books.
Will I recommend this book? Yes of course! But don’t expect big cliffhangers or tricks and twists.
