The Listerdale Mystery
Ratings3
Average rating3.2
15
Ratings3
Average rating3.2
This short story collection was first published in 1934 in the UK. It contains the following short stories: The Listerdale Mystery, Philomel Cottage, The Girl in the Train, Sing a Song of Sixpence, The Manhood of Edward Robinson, Accident, Jane in Search of a Job, A Fruitful Sunday, Mr Eastwood's Adventure, The Golden Ball, The Rajah's Emerald and Swan Song.
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This is more of a collection of random Agatha Christie short mystery/suspense stories. They were entertaining enough, but I found that most of them tended to revolve around the same few plot lines. For example, “The Girl In The Train” and “Mr Eastwood's Adventure” revolved around a genteel young man who is cast out by a rich older relation and gets into a scrape of sorts, and finds himself making his fortune through the exact same ‘unexpected' way (won't spoil it for people). Then “The Rajah's Emerald” and “The Manliness of Edward Robinson” revolved around jewellery (it's always jewellery if it's not money or an inheritance in Agatha Christie) that are misplaced in the exact same manner. The very similar plot lines and undeveloped characters lead me to wonder if these were almost a sort of reject pile for Agatha Christie. That is not to say that they weren't entertaining though.
“The Listerdale Mystery” and “Philomel Cottage” were the stand-out stories for me, especially the latter. I even went to Google the story after that because the ending was rather uncharacteristically ambiguous, but I liked the whole air of horrific suspense throughout. It was a little reminiscent of an Edgar Allen Poe short story.
“Jane In Search Of A Job” reminded me strongly of The Case of the Red-Headed League in the Sherlock Holmes canon at its beginning, but later it panned out in a very different way and I enjoyed it too.
