Three Act Tragedy/Death in the clouds/The Hollow

 








Name : Three Act Tragedy/Death in the clouds/The Hollow
Author : Agatha Christie
Year of Publication : 1935/1935/1946
Genre : Fiction, Thriller , Detective Fiction
Rating : ***/****/** (3,4 and 2 stars out of 5, respectively)

1930s was the decade when Agatha Christie was in her prime, reeling off one blockbuster whodunit after another. "Death in the clouds" published in 1935 is vintage Christie set in an aeroplane wherein an "improbable" crime has happened and Hercule Poirot employs his little grey cells to crack the case. "Three Act Tragedy" (1935) is again a cleverly plotted Christie but the first murder in the novel is more of Christie showing off that she has found another new motive for murder than plausible story-writing. "The Hollow" (1946) could have been a complete novel even without Poirot or a murder - the characters are so well written and the sub-plots make for a good romance. The flaw is that we do not enter Saravana Bhavan expecting to eat Chicken Biriyani and a title featuring Poirot naturally orients our expectations differently. Maybe the story would have been better off without Poirot.

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