fuckyeahmurdermysteries:

Hey! Mod 3 replying to this one (if the other 2 mods have read it please do
chip in). Sorry for the late reply to this, but I wanted to finish the first
book before replying to you. I’d be happy to discuss all three once I’ve
finished them, which should be soon.

So, two things that influenced my review of the first book, The Monogram
Murders (I’m reading the second one, Closed Casket, right now.)
Spoiler free for the most part apart from one pertinent bit that doesn’t really
surprise anyone paying attention:

First thing: I want to thank you for sending this message, because I
initially saw these books a few years ago, and just… ignored them. They
weren’t something I’d have picked up – ever since reading the irritation that
was Jeeves and the Wedding Bells by Sebastian Foulkes, I tended to sneer
at any ‘new plot/new author’-published works, like the various Sherlock Holmes
sequels or Bond stories that various authors have published. I’d consider them
basically fanfiction, and the way I saw it, I’ve read excellent fanfic online,
so why should some fanfic get published because the author’s voice was bigger,
or they were the ‘right’ kind of fanfic writer, or they had connections to
the original estate, and some fanfic not? (Like I said – JATW was a seriously
annoying book for me, and influenced how I saw these others. It
literally has Jeeves trying to marry Wooster off, it’s annoying and
heteronormative as hell) I shouldn’t have ignored these. They’re so much fun.
I’m actually sad that I left these so long without reading them, just because I
pre-judged them.

Second thing – I made the mistake of reading some of the reviews of some
very… uh, traditional Christie fans towards the first book. And
specifically, their reactions to the fact that Sophie Hannah has created an OC
to be Poirot’s sidekick, Hastings obviously still being in Argentina in this
timeline. And their rage – or at least one of their rages – was centered around
the implication that  this detective sidekick, Edward Catchpool, might *gasp*
be gay. Not even living it large with lots of boyfriends, or even one
boyfriend, or having dastardly gay sex on every other page. He merely alludes
to not fancying women and has an internal discussion about a crisis of love.
And their homophobic rage just drips off every review. And so, I decided to
stan for these books out of sheer spite. At first I merely liked them as a fun
yarn – now I’ve decided to insist they’re the bee’s knees, the cat’s pyjamas,
solely because of some asshole homophobes who decided they were the gatekeepers
of what constituted “true” detective fiction. Spite-stanning, it’s a thing. (EDIT: having now finished Closed Casket – someone who ships Gathercole and Catchpool come talk to me)

Anyway – the actual review. This book is not Christie. It’s not
like her voice, and this is a good thing. The problem with fanfic is it
often tries to cleave to the original author’s voice too strongly,
and this leads to it coming off as fake, offputting. You can never truly
imitate someone else’s writing style, so any little discrepancy will send the
story into the literary equivalent of uncanny valley. Sophie Hannah doesn’t
even try, but instead makes a choice to concentrate more on making it in the ‘style’
of the original author, to conjure up the atmosphere of interbellum London. And
that seems to have enraged a lot of Amazon reviewers, who seemed to expect
actual Christie. For my part, I think this choice works. Catchpool isn’t
Hastings. He’s a character of his own, and despite a shaky start you do grow
fond of him, and he works well as a narrator for this new, retired Poirot.

I initially found his character a bit annoying – without giving too much
away, he’s a bit wet at first when confronted with three bodies, and is
supposed to be a novice inspector… but even for a novice he does do some dreamy
stuff. You get the impression this is a character on the verge of growth – in fact,
this is lampshaded by Poirot when he says he wants to make a good inspector of
Catchpool and therefore won’t just spoon-feed him the way he did Hastings… but
by gods, his character development does take some time. He isn’t completely
dim, which is good because as ever this kind of character is meant to be a
stand-in for us, the audience, and it’s nice to not have everything overexplained.
I hope he continues to become a better policeman in the next two books.

The story switches between Poirot’s and Catchpool’s perspectives, and it’s a
risky move that pays off. You do get the feeling that this is an older, retired
Poirot, more genteel and slowed down, but the pace of the book is still great.
The twist-upon-twist at the reveal was done really well, and just when you finally think you know the murderer, it
twists again… and you’re left unable to put the book down. Which is what
Christie would have wanted, I think. This aspect seems quite influenced by the
David Suchet TV adaptations (that guy can’t be the killer, there’s still 15
minutes left of the show!) but it works in book format, too.

I also really appreciate that this stuck to one cardinal Christie rule –
everything used by the detective to solve the murder HAS to appear on the page
at some point before. Even if it’s just a vague mention. You find yourself
going back frantically to recheck tiny details. The plot itself is original
enough, and though I started yelling at the page really early on about a
certain theory in the book when a crucial difference was remarked upon (cos you
know, there’s some tropes you just know when you read a lot of detective
fiction) but besides that, I was pleasantly entertained.

The author commentary on social issues is sparse, but just as with the
original Christie there’s a few lines, underlining that Poirot is a foreigner
in England, and that has got some social implications, and people do behave in
certain ways. It’s subtle, but good.

Tl:dr version – I liked these books. They’re not exactly Christie’s style,
but they stand well enough on their own. I’d actually even read a spinoff (I
guess original fiction) with this sidekick, as he grows up.