10 reviews for Hickory Dickory Dock (Poirot)

1. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   Deepa – May 5, 2022

   I feel that Christie wrote her most surprising book . It completely changed the tables near the end . But One detail , that is the procedure of the murder had not been properly explained. It was the only thing not making me give a 5 star

2. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   bala – March 4, 2023

   The story develops from simple problem to sophisticated complication..many characters to follow, but mm Madame Christie soins it nicely back and forth to sustain deep interest..👍

3. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Raza muqri – August 7, 2020

   Mrs. Nicolites , one of the best characters created by Christie. Absolutely loved her.Overall great book , surprisingly poirot came across very cold and rude initially so much less “amiable”.Honestly there was very less of Poirot here and I thought some of the questions were left unanswered but overall a great book the ending was really unexpected. Another of Christie’s masterpiece no doubt.

4. 

   Rated 3 out of 5

   Ravin – May 5, 2022

   Nothing too special, but a disappointment since it’s an Agatha Christie book

5. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   Ria – June 24, 2020

   Agatha Christie never disappoints! A well paced, well written , quick read that keeps you on the edge till the very end.

6. 

   Rated 3 out of 5

   Kindle Customer – June 3, 2020

   You may think that you don’t know the culprit, but all this time it was there. The only twist is, it’s not just ‘one’ of them.An entertaining read!

7. 

   Rated 3 out of 5

   Avishek – July 11, 2020

   Not very interesting to me. Other novels are more intriguing, it was not explained well in the end. Too many characters!

8. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Rudrarup – July 3, 2020

   Engaging upto the last moment. Not a classic Hercule Poirot kind of conferencing end, but a different approach highlighting the ingenuous thought process of the detective.

9. 

   Rated 3 out of 5

   J. G. Osborn – July 5, 2023

   Students behaving badlyAs with her previous three Poirot novels, Agatha continues to reflect the austerity of the post-war years with this unlikely tale of crime in busy lodgings comprising 15 residents. There’s also a warden, a cook, and the cook’s manservant. How times change!A spate of minor thefts is brought to Poirot’s attention. His curiosity is piqued when the warden of the hostel provides a list of stolen and vandalised items, which he quickly realises it’s masking more sinister activities. During a visit, Poirot recommends they involve the police and this prompts one of the students to confess. Much to everybody’s horror, the same person is subsequently found dead the following morning.The arrival of Inspector Sharpe upsets the excitable and nervous proprietor, Mrs Nicoletis, with disastrous consequences while a growing unease amongst the students leads to accusations and quarrels as the apparently random murders continue.Unfortunately, the story labours a bit as Agatha draws unnecessary attention to the residents’ broad range of ethnicities. There’s also a big focus on their personalities, several of which are forces of nature. However, all the Napoleon-sized egos, scholarly Freudian analysis, and unscrupulous Machiavellian scheming in the world still fails to compensate for what is ultimately a slightly pedestrian plot.A sign that Agatha is maybe writing out of her comfort zone here is that most of the narrative reads like a second-hand account of a changing world in which she has little real-life experience. As a result, I didn’t find the storyline as credible or engaging as previous novels and the end is so disjointed and nonsensical it feels as though a chapter has been removed.There’s also the issue of the title. To be clear, this case has absolutely nothing to do with the nursery rhyme of the same name. Even the address of the hostel was only changed from Gillespie to Hickory Road at the last moment. It’s claimed that Agatha originally had an entirely different plot in mind but it was soon abandoned. For me, it’s the remnant of an opportunity missed because the final published version would have benefitted from some fresh ideas. Instead, Agatha has borrowed a lot of material from other cases and Hickory Dickory Dock is at risk of becoming a pastiche of Poirot’s career.I hope she’s just had a bad day at the writing desk and moves back to familiar territory with Dead Man’s Folly, which is, after all, set in the grounds of her family home.

10. 

    Rated 4 out of 5

    Paul S – May 27, 2020

    An intriguing murder mystery but, for me, not as enjoyable as the Poirot stories of the 1930s.It has been many years since I last read an Agatha Christie novel and so when Hickory Dickory Dock was offered free on Amazon I decided to download it. Sadly, even though there are many aspects of this novel I enjoyed, overall I did not find it as engaging as many of the Poirot novels written some twenty or so years earlier.On the positive side, I enjoyed the diverse and richly defined range of characters, some of whom challenge Poirot’s old fashioned approach to solving crimes. Secondly, there is a wide diversity of cultures present in the story, which I found surprising in a positive way when one considers that this novel was first published in 1955. Thirdly there are a range of different crimes and it is not immediately apparent how, or if, they are interrelated. Finally there are a number of twists in the plot that get you reconsidering the rationale for the crimes that have been committed.So what aspects did I find less appealing? Firstly, Poirot is not really the central character of the story even though he is the catalyst for most of the breakthroughs at key moments in the story. In addition, some of the wonderful characters from the earlier Poirot stories do not feature in this one (e.g. Inspector Japp and Hastings) although the normally reliable Miss Lemon is present.The book is relatively short (around 120 pages) but I would not classify it as a particularly quick read. This is in part due to the number of characters (i.e. suspects) and crimes that feature. There are at least ten ‘suspects’ one needs to keep track of, as well as a number of different crimes besides murder to investigate. As expected, all the crimes are solved by the end of the novel but some of the critical clues are not revealed until close to the end of the story … this may well irritate some budding armchair detectives.So, while I enjoyed the complexity of the plot and the portrayal of many of the characters in this intriguing murder mystery, it struggled to hold my attention as much as some of the Agatha Christie novels written in the 1930s (such as The ABC Murders or Death on the Nile).