Dumb witness
By
Agatha Christie
Was my January entry for
#readchristie2021
“A story set in Grand House.”
It is a year long Readathon organized by Official Agatha Christie (Instagram)
also check their Official website for more details and suggestions.
This story features Bob the wire fox terrier Dog 🐕 and I loved his part in the book..
And the end for the Bob was very satisfactory..
Bob’s and Hastings chemistry was pretty good 👻
Overall end of the book was also satisfactory considering the situation they were in.
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I will suggest don’t read the blurb before reading this one.
Coz I didn’t and that way we enjoy it better.
In the beginning we come across all the incidences leading till actual murder.
In many of Christies book it happens and I always felt bored while listening to that without Poirot. But in this one it was interesting to know. I don’t know why. It felt like we are getting change to analyse the things before the murder happend.
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Even after that I was not able to guess correctly 😂.
As always I got fooled in the end.
Infact I felt that by now I should know how she thinks and should be able to guess the person. But except that person I thought about all others 😅.
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Along with Queen of crime
She is also Queen of fooling us 😂.
You see in any book when murder happens and we are looking at the witnesses.. most of the time we like atleast one character.. here all were unlikable and seemed to me that few were shown so, to fool us (coz in the end we see different side of them). We felt pity for some characters but no i couldn’t like anyone. I only liked Bob (the dog)
In many books featuring Hastings with Poirot we feel irritated with Hastings and not just irritated but we don’t like his narration too. (Still to see it from his side is better)
But in this book I liked Hastings narration and Hastings also. He wasn’t irritable as always. Ofcourse his chemistry with Bob was added bonus.
Some interesting facts about the book :
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This is 16th book featuring Poirot and Second last book featuring Hastings… After this Hastings and Poirot feature in Curtain which is 42nd book featuring Poirot.
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Dumb witness was earlier a short story called as ‘The incident of Dogs ball’ and was lost for many years. Eventually they found it in 2005 in Christie’s daughter’s personal effects.
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Many critics found mistakes in this story but according to them it’s still better than an average thriller.
It definitely keeps you hooked from first page itself.
And you can’t just stop.
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Christie has Dedicated this book to her beloved Dog Peter (short-haired Terrier) and he was also on the cover of the book.
I intend to read more books by Christie this year. (And all her books some day, maybe in a year or two I can achieve that goal)
“
Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her. There were buttons and switches everywhere – buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced literature. And there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends. The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.”
Theredheadedbibliomaniac 