Hello dear readers! This is Miss A. Misra. I am here to suggest another book you can read. Today’s book is Ordeal by Innocence, written by Agatha Christie.
I bought this book very recently at the airport bookshop, along with two others (namely, “partners in crime,” and “the chalice of the Gods.” They’re pretty amazing, too) The name intrigued me very much. Ordeal? By Innocence? How? So of COURSE I had to buy it. Also, there were not many other science fiction books I liked in stock there.
Also, even the short blurb was interesting, and I liked that this was a cold-case murder book, and I hadn’t heard of this one before. Only a few copies of the book left so I had to buy it quickly. The storyline is deep and about a murder case around a year ago. I liked how the author aired everyone’s opinions about the case through different chapters. While reading I felt I was very close to the truth, but I could not exactly grasp who murdered who in the story.
I’m giving you a summary before I dive into the details.
A year ago, Mrs Argyle was killed through blunt force trauma, in her own house, by one of her currently grown up step children (she adopted 5 kids since she could not have any of her own) or her husband, or her husband’s secretary, or even her old nurse.
Mrs Argyle controlled her children and provided EVERYTHING for them, making them resent her constant and consistent presence. It could have been any of them. Or maybe even her husband, since she was so ignorant of him. Anyone could have killed her really. But Jack was condemned, because he was the most aggressive, and also since he was found with some money which seemed to have been stolen from his mother’s desk.
The other family members were quite satisfied when Jack was arrested since it seemed obvious that no one else was suspected. However, later, Dr Calgary turns up with evidence that Jack is innocent and has a strong alibi. But Jack has died of pneumonia in prison by then. Now the family begin suspecting each other.
There is Hester, Tina, Mickey, and Mary Argyle among the stepchildren, any of whom could have murdered their foster mother. That narrows it down to around 0% which must have been extremely helpful to the investigators. ( that was sarcasm, okay?)
Who committed the crime? Will they get away with it? Will they stop him or her before the murderer strikes again?
The novel was awesome and I enjoyed reading it. It was not humorous, though and I could not find any jokes in the story, except for some hint traces of irony, mainly spoken by Phillip, husband of Mary Durrant. While I loved the book as a whole, more humour would certainly have improved the whole book quite a few notches. It would have immediately gone up as my current favorite book. ( note: I wrote the word”currently” because my “favorite book” can change every day. so it’s best not to claim this is the only favorite book I will ever mention. Like, I said “The Girl Who Drank the moon” is the best book ever a few posts ago. And later on, I mentioned “Percy Jackson” is my favorite.)
Anyways, I am logging off now, see you in another review!
Cheerio! – 🙂
