Sunday, March 24, 2024

Book Review: Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

Death on the Nile Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

Love is a beautiful feeling. It makes the world appear bright and all things sweet. But many a times, love can turn out to be dangerous, especially if it involves a love triangle. Just as in this novel titled, “Death on the Nile” by Agatha Christie. This book reveals the story in which a romance triangle led to three brutal murders one after the other. The chain of events in the story goes like this.




A woman named Linnet Ridgeway is the heiress of a wealthy household of England. She is a lovely lady, who has everything – looks, money, fame, a business mind, and what not. This usually makes her the object of people’s envy, enemity and resentment. One day her best friend Jacqueline de Bellefort comes to visit her. Unlike Linnet, Jackie is not rich. Jackie is in love with a man named Simon Doyle. They are planning to get married. But before they do, Jackie visits her friend Linnet to ask her to give Simon a job.

However, when Linnet meets Simon, she instantly falls for him. Now, she is the girl who has never been denied anything in her life. She’s got everything she ever wanted. So, she marries Simon. This stirs up the clouds of resentment and bitterness in the heart of Jackie. So, when Linnet and Simon go on their honeymoon to Egypt, they find that Jackie follows them everywhere; she stalks them deliberately to disrupt their happy moments.

Their 7-day trip to Egypt is mainly inside a steamer called Karnak, set to tour along the Nile River from Shellal to Wadi Halfa and back. It is on the setting of this boat that the major plot of the story unfolds. While Linnet is worried at Jackie’s gruesome stalking, she reaches out to another passenger named Hercule Poirot, who is Agatha Christie’s signature French detective. Poirot is on a holiday. Linnet often speaks to Poirot saying that she is anxious as she is surrounded by enemies everywhere.

At Wadi Halfa, Poirot's friend Colonel Race also joins the steamer for the return trip. Race tells Poirot that he seeks a criminal among the passengers. In addition to the Doyle couple, Colonel Race and Poirot, the other passengers on the boat include Linnet Doyle’s maid Louise Bourget, an elderly woman Mrs. Allerton and her son Tim Allerton, a romance writer Mrs. Otterbourne and her daughter Rosaline Otterbourne, a shabby man Ferguson, an Italian archaeologist Richetti, a gentleman Fanthorp, Linnet’s American trustee Andrew Pennington, an arrogant middle-aged woman Marie Van Schuyler, with her nurse Mrs. Bowers and cousin Cornelia Robson, and a doctor named Dr. Bessner. In the beginning portion of the book, the author took the time to introduce all these characters in detail, before jumping into the murder mystery.

Mrs. Allerton is depicted to be a lovely elderly woman, but her son Tim Allerton is short-tempered. Mrs. Otterbourne is a romance writer, but due to her poor book sales, she has given into drinking heavily which hurts her daughter Rosaline. Rosaline is shown to be a sulky and anxious girl, who is living her life in torment and suffering due to her mother’s drinking habits. Cornelia is excited as she is travelling outside her home for the first time as her wealthy cousin Marie allowed her to accompany her.

Jackie, at first, is depicted to be utterly resentful and furious towards the honeymoon couple. She even confesses a remark about Linnet to Poirot, “I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.” She also reveals to him that she is carrying a pearl pistol with her. Until this time, everything is going all well and good. Even Linnet restores her happiness and charm, ignoring Jackie’s stalking.

Then one night, while everyone is seated in the dining saloon of the boat, a dramatic scene unfurls. When Linnet and most of the other passengers return to their cabins to sleep, only four persons are left in the saloon – Simon Doyle, Jackie, Cornelia and Fanthorp. Jackie starts heavily drinking and uttering curse words for Simon. All of a sudden, she slips out her pearl pistol from the pocket and shoots Simon in the leg. Then suddenly she starts to cry hysterically.

Simon asks Cornelia and Fanthorp to not worry about him and handle Jackie in case she attempts suicide due to guilt. Cornelia accompanies Jackie to her cabin and asks Mrs. Bowers to remain with her for the night. When Cornelia and Fanthorp return to the saloon, they find Simon, his leg bleeding with the shot of the bullet. They instantly shift him to Dr. Bessner’s cabin who says he would require an X-ray when they return back to Shellal. Till then he would remain in doctor’s inspection.

During all this, Jackie had dropped her pistol under her seat but when Fanthorp returned later in the saloon, he found the pistol missing.

The mystery strikes the watercraft when the next morning, Linnet is found shot dead in her cabin. Race tells Poirot that as a famed detective, it is his obligation to solve this murder mystery. Upon examining Linnet’s cabin, Poirot discovers nothing apart from the letter “J” scribbled in red on one of the walls, a bottle of nail polish filled with drops of red ink, and Linnet’s expensive pearl necklace missing. The first suspect, of course, points to Jackie who was so resentful of Linnet and who had a pistol too.

After some search, Jackie’s pistol is found from inside the Nile’s waters, dripping and wrapped in a pink-stained handkerchief and a velvet stole that belonged to Marie Van Schuyler, who reported it missing the previous day.

Together with Race, Poirot interviews all the passengers one by one. Upon confessions of Mrs. Bowers and Dr. Bessner, both Jackie and Simon are dismissed from being the murderers as they have alibis to support. Jackie didn’t left the cabin where she was with Mrs. Bowers throughout the night, whereas Simon couldn’t leave either due to his injured leg.

As for the missing pearl necklace of Linnet, Mrs. Bowers hands Poirot a necklace saying that her mistress Schuyler had taken it because she was a kleptomaniac. Kleptomania is form of psychological disorder in which someone is unable to resist the urge to steal things.

However, when Poirot examined the necklace, it turned out to be merely an imitation of the original pearl necklace. Where did the original pearls go, he wonders. As if to complicate the matters, the next day, another murder happens, that of Linnet’s maid, Louise Bourget. Poirot churns his brain, thinking through a lot of red herrings. One afternoon, while he and Race is sitting in Dr. Bessner’s cabin, talking to Simon, Mrs. Otterbourne appears and exclaims that she knows who is the murderer. But before she could utter the name, she is shot dead from a bullet that raced from outside the cabin.

Despite Poirot’s keen observation, he sees several albatrosses coming in his way of solving the mystery. Even Race finds his suspect criminal who turns out to be the Italian archaeologist Richetti, but he was not the man behind the three murders. Bit by bit, Poirot connects the dots.

Organizing the pieces forming in his brain, Poirot unfolds the entire mystery to Race. Linnet’s murder was not some abrupt or on-the-spot action, but a meticulously designed and well planned scheme. Jackie and Simon, who were still lovers had designed the entire scheme, because if Linnet died, all her wealth would go to Simon, and then Simon could marry his love Jackie.

In the dining saloon that night, Jackie had never shot Simon. But she only acted in a melodramatic manner to distract Cornelia and Fanthorp. Simon had faked his shot with smears of red ink. While the two of these were taking Jackie to her cabin, Simon slipped from the saloon, shot Linnet dead and deposited the bottle of red ink on Linnet’s washstand so it would not be found with him. Thereupon, he shot his own leg with a bullet, returned to the saloon, sat on a window seat, and threw the pistol overboard in the Nile’s waters. When Fanthorp and Cornelia returned with Dr. Bessner, they became witnesses to Simon’s innocence, while on the other hand, Jackie too had Mrs. Bowers as the witness of her innocence in the crime.

But Simon had bad luck. Linnet’s maid had seen him exit Linnet’s cabin at that time of the night. Although she didn’t reveal it to Poirot, she secretly blackmailed Simon for money. Jackie shot her dead. But Jackie too had poor luck, for Mrs. Otterbourne saw her entering Bourget’s cabin. So, Jackie also killed Mrs. Otterbourne.

Meanwhile, the pearls are found to be hidden inside rosary beads owned by Tim Allerton, who just wanted to steal the pearls but never intended to murder or harm anyone.

As the steamer arrives back in Shellal and the passengers disembark, Jacqueline shoots Simon and herself with another pistol so they may escape the legal punishment of gallows. Poirot later reveals that he had always known she had a second pistol, but had chosen to allow her to take her own life.

The greatest thrill in reading this mystery comes from watching Poirot resolving his brain’s disordered thoughts into an organized scenario that unveiled the game plan of the murderers. Another highlight of this mystery is its characters. Each character is relatable, detailed, and grotesque in its own unique way. The book is a brilliantly-crafted page-turner that would grab the reader’s interest till the end.
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Book Review: Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid is an illustrated journal that a character named Greg Heffley maintains, for recording his everyday experiences. Greg is a school boy who studies in seventh grade. He lives with his family which includes both of his parents, his elder brother Rodrick and his younger brother Manny. In his daily journal entries, Greg captures experiences from his life at home, at school, in his neighborhood, with his relatives and his friends. In these entries, he also shares plethora of life lessons that he learns as he approaches his adolescent years.

The book unfolds into a series of instances that Greg writes about, that are light-hearted and often, hilarious. The book is written in first person and is unputdownable due to its perfect comic timing and so many relatable scenes.




It is difficult to describe the entire book in a summarized story, because the book is penned down in a series of several little-little stories. Though, here I will describe some characters and events from the book that make up the highlights.

Greg has a best friend, whose name is Rowley. Rowley is in the same class as Greg and he lives a stone’s throw away from Greg’s house too. Unlike Greg, who is slightly mischievous and naughty, Rowley is depicted to be innocent, naïve and chucklesome. Rowley is often the target of Greg’s brainy schemes, in which Greg uses him to gain popularity and admiration from others, especially from girls. Most of the time, Greg’s cunning schemes end up backfiring at him.

Greg has a bittersweet relationship with Rowley. Sometimes he is his bestest friend whereas other times, when Rowley becomes the center of others’ attention, Greg despises him and feels jealous. Each time he gets into fight with Rowley, he has a back-up friend, a boy named Collin. Collin too lives nearby Greg’s house. The reason why Greg loves going to Collin’s house is because of his good supply of video games. Greg is an avid lover of video games. Apart from his school, he usually spends his time hooked to his video games, which his mother doesn’t like at all. So, each time she grounds him from playing these games, he uses his friends Rowley or Collin, visiting their house to play these video games.

On the other side, Greg’s father is interested in getting him admitted to an all-boys school or a military academy. He often makes Greg participate in various kinds of sports such as soccer, swimming, wrestling, scouts, etc. But Greg always finds a way to trick his dad into thinking that he is doing just great in his current girls-boys school. He plays these sports only when he has to impress his dad in order to extract some favour from him.

In addition to sharing his experiences with his parents, Greg also writes about his experiences with his brothers. His elder brother, Rodrick, has a band in which he plays drums. Each time the band members gather in their house to practice, it causes their dad to feel annoyed. His dad, at all times, is wondering how to drive away these crazy teenyboppers out of their house.

On the flip side, Greg’s younger brother Manny is a spoiled child who is excessively pampered by their mom. Manny often takes advantage of this and gets Greg into trouble by meandering with the things, snacks and notebooks in his room. Greg has to hide everything with utmost caution to prevent Manny from reaching these. But when it comes to his elder brother, even he sometimes likes to mess up with him by sneaking into Rodrick’s room and fiddling with his belongings and stuff.
Rodrick is depicted to be a boy who likes to laze around all day on the sofa, but as soon as their parents are out of house, he becomes electrified, invites all his friends to the house and indulges in party time. Greg always has to keep these parties secret from their parents. First because he too wishes to enjoy these parties, and second, because he is terrified what if Rodrick reveals funny secrets about him to his friends, which would stain his reputation.
Greg has a crush on a girl named Piper Matthews. She is in a different school, but he encounters her almost every weekend when he goes to the church with his family. He is always trying to make a good impression on Piper’s parents, but nearly every time, it ends up becoming a comic event.
On days when he is not at school, or playing video games or at church, he usually visits his Gramma’s house. His grandma likes Manny more than him, and she doesn’t welcome Greg’s mischiefs at all. One day, as Greg is browsing through his Gramma’s house, he comes across a box of candies, from which he picks up one candy and eats it. For the next few days, he feels sick in his stomach, that’s when his father tells him that it was an antique box of candies. It had been kept in his Grandma’s house since the time when even he was a child.
Many such hilarious events mark Greg’s journal entries. One of these goes like this. Greg’s mother is a school teacher. So she hires a maid named Isabella to do the housework. While his mom is out on her job, Greg notices that Isabella sits all day on their sofa, watching television, eating snacks and partying with the neighborhood maids. The extremity occurs when Greg finds her socks in his bed and comes to know that she takes naps in his bed every day while he is at school. His mom fires Isabella.
Another funny event that Greg writes about is a block of years-old cheese lying on the sidelines of his school playground. He and the other boys of his class have a belief that this moldy cheese is haunted, and whoever touches it gets possessed by a disease. Everybody makes sure not to touch this block of cheese. One day, while Greg’s seniors catch him and Rowley, they start ragging them by making them bite into this ancient cheese. As always, Greg tricks them by placing all the onus on Rowley who has no choice but to eat that moldy block.
From mocking a boy in his classroom by treating him as invisible, to getting rejected from his school’s comics magazine for offensive humour, from stuffing his grandpa’s disgusting salad in his pockets to avoid eating, to secretly gulping away a gingerbread chocolate cake that his mother made for guests, several laugh-out-loud moments are studded in Greg’s journal entries. Everything he does or anything he attempts to become popular, it backfires at him in the most laughable of ways.
Apart from writing about his bizarre experiences with his aunts and uncles and neighbors, Greg also writes about oodles of life lessons, some deep and insightful, some witty and hilarious, that he learns over the course of these experiences. For instance, one lesson that he learns is, give people the least expectation of yourself so when you surpass them, they think you have grown wiser. Then, he also learns that one should learn to keep one’s mouth shut and not blurt out more than what is required. Sometimes speaking too much could make the tables turn against oneself.
There is a plethora of laughter moments embedded in the book. Whether you are a budding student or a full-fledged adult, the book is worth a read, a chronicle of so many relatable scenes and entertaining episodes!
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Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Book Review: The Adventure of the Cardboard Box by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of the Cardboard Box The Adventure of the Cardboard Box by Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of the Cardboard Box is a short story penned by Arthur Conan Doyle. It is written in a straightforward tone and most of the mystery unfolds during the time of its investigation. The plot of mystery in this story is mainly depicted in the narrative of thinking that Detective Sherlock Holmes presents when he encountered the clues. It is only the description of his thought process in which most of the mystery is shown to be solved in the story. The story goes something like this.



A retired woman named Mrs. Susan Cushing, who lives in Croydon, receives a parcel containing a yellow cardboard box packed in brown paper. Inside the box are two raw ears freshly cut off from two human bodies, lying inside a mound of coarse salt. The parcel was sent from the city of Belfast, yet its owner remains uncovered by the authorities.
The case goes under the investigation of Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard who suspects three medical students for sending this parcel to the woman, to carry out a mischief. He suspects them because these three medical students once lived as tenants in the woman’s house and were thrown out by her because of their spoiled behaviorr.
Lestrade seeks the help of Detective Sherlock Holmes, who visits the woman’s house along with his friend Watson, who is also the narrator of the story. Holmes, who is a crackerjack at solving mysteries, walks to the woman’s backyard to witness and inspect the cardboard box himself. Having examined the box and its contents, Holmes suspects that it is evidence of a serious crime, and not merely some prank or mischief. As per his thinking, there are many reasons for this. First and foremost, if the medical students had hacked the ears off some dead body in their laboratory, the ears would have been dipped in preservative fluids, and not merely covered in salt. Second, the handwriting scribbled on the package appeared to belong to someone who was not very educated and was largely unfamiliar with the locations of Croydon. He thought this when he noticed a spelling mistake in the spelling of Croydon, which was corrected and covered up by hastily writing over it with the pen.

Upon putting back the package where it was kept, Holmes began asking a series of questions from Mrs. Cushing, while also scrupulously observing the surroundings of her living room. His observations revealed that Susan has two sisters named Mary and Sarah. Mary is married to a man named Jim Browner who is a sailor.

Holmes quickly dispatches a telegram to an acquaintance of him in Liverpool where the Browners are known to be residing. Post this, he visits Sarah’s house, and comes to know that she will not be able to meet them, as she has “brain fever.” Soon enough, he receives a response to his telegram which informs him that the Browners have not been present at their residence for the past two or three days. His analysis, that the parcel’s receiver was originally intended to be Sarah Cushing and not Susan Cushing, is proved to be true.
Later on, as they catch Jim Browner, he confesses his crime and blurts out the entire story. He was the one who had sent the parcel to Susan’s house, thinking that Sarah was living with Susan as she used to do in the earlier days. The name “S. Cushing” written on the parcel had sparked confusion whether it was for Susan or Sarah. It was for Sarah. The two freshly-cut ears contained in the parcel belonged to Jim’s wife Mary and a man who was Mary’s lover. He had sent these to Sarah as a form of revenge. He believed that it was Sarah who had poisoned his wife’s mind against him and introduced her to this man. This was all because Jim, had once rejected Sarah’s love.
While Jim appears to be wracked with guilt as he confesses the entire story, Holmes starts to ponder on the nature of life, the circle of misery. Whose fault it was actually? Jim committed the crime enraged with a sense of passion that arises from experiencing betrayal in love. At the same time, a crime indeed was committed, that cannot be denied. So, whose fault it was, Sarah’s who interfered in their happy relationship, the other man who indulged in an affair with his wife, his wife Mary or him? In the end, the truth remains unanswerable.

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Saturday, March 2, 2024

Book Review: The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson

The House of a Thousand Candles The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson

It is usually a dim daze and a call to adventure that makes a mystery exciting. The House of a Thousand Candles is a classic mystery thriller that has all the elements of a good, immersive mystery. The book was originally published in 1906 and has been made into movies twice since then. The story of the novel goes like this. A witty young man named Jack Glenarm has squandered all of his father’s money in his travels and wanderings. It is the month of October, when he receives a call through which he is informed that his grandfather had passed away in the month of June.
A lawyer named Arthur Pickering calls Jack to read to him the will of his grandfather John Glenarm, who was a rich man. He tells Jack that his grandfather entrusted him with the will and he was a loyal friend of him. But Jack doesn’t seem to trust Pickering, who was also one of his schooltime friends. According to the will, young Glenarm will receive his inheritance, but there are some tough stipulations attached to it. The main condition is that Jack has to stay in his grandfather’s mansion for an year without travelling away from that area during this time. The other condition is that he is forbidden to marry a young woman named Marian, who lives there. If during the term of this year, he marries this woman, then the entire inheritance will go to a Christian girls school named St. Agatha’s in the village.
His grandpa’s house is a secluded mansion located in rural Indiana, a setting around which the major portion of the novel is set. Jack, who is already short of money, decides to move ahead for his stay in this mansion, thinking that it would be a no big deal. So, Jack proceeds toward the mansion. Upon reaching there, he is welcomed by the housekeeper Bates, who was a loyal servant to his grandfather and who had transmitted the news of his death to Pickering.
Jack’s grandfather was an avid lover of all things architecture and design. He had specially gotten foreign artists and labourers to build this mansion, sculpting the intricate details and designwork. The moment he stepped inside the mansion, he already came across some of the finest architectural details crafted in the interiors as well as outdoors. Towering stone walls, luxurious palatial-style rooms, shimmering colossal crystal chandelier dangling from the high ceiling of the lobby, fireplace crackling with hickory wood logs, a majectic fireplace mantelpiece and a mammoth library full of bookshelves slinging with tons of books on subjects of architecture and design. But the most unusual thing he notices inside the mansion is candles. There are about hundreds and hundreds of candles illuminating the mansion from the inside. From tallow candles to expensive silver candlesticks, there are varied candle sconces tucked everywhere, from the walls to the tables. Bates tells him that his grandfather was highly passionate about collecting different types of candles and so he usually imported them from around the world.
Outside the mansion, Jack experiences sunset skies dripping with the festal colours of red, brown and gold. There is a small lake where some people are paddling in their canoes. As the moon mirrors itself in the glassy lake, Jack tours around the territory, walking through lush woodlands, countryside courtyards blooming with seasonal flowers with a view of a girls school bordering the other side of the lake. Everything is as tranquil as it could be, until, one night, Jack almost gets shot down by a bullet while he is sitting beside an open window reading a book.
From there on, the mansion, as serene and beautiful it appeared to him, turns into a haunted place brimming with creepy secrets. As time goes by, he learns of secret treasures buried in the mansion, he hears ghostlike figures walking behind the wall, he discovers an underground tunnel that leads to a chapel adjoining the school. How many unrevealed passageways are snaking inside this mansion, he wonders.
This mysterious enigma presented in the novel is further enhanced by a romantic subplot that is the cherry on the top. Jack, while taking his daily walks through the countryside, repeatedly comes across a school teacher named Marian who also plays music. He usually spots her wearing a skirt and a red tam o shanter, a type of women’s hat with a bobble attached to it. Gradually, he falls in love with her, forgetting that he is forbidden to marry her, in case he wants to receive his grandfather’s inheritance.
One day, as Marian leaves the village to go to Cincinnati, Jack finds himself tempted to take a train and follow her. And so, he ends up breaking one condition of his grandfather’s will. Pickering, who is already seeking to grab the mansion’s buried treasures, learns about Jack’s disappearance from the mansion. He uses this opportunity to tell Jack that he will now not receive a nugget of his grandfather’s inheritance. But soon enough, Jack’s friend Larry, who is a guest in the mansion, discovers The Door of Bewilderment hidden inside the secret underground tunnel of the mansion, enclosed by loose bricks and lightly plastered cement. Behind the door, is a bundle of papers containing grandpa’s notes, according to which, Pickering had taken a huge debt of $320,000 from Jack’s grandfather. They come to know that Pickering was plotting against Jack. Together with Larry and Stoddard, the village’s chaplain, Jack drives away Pickering and his team, who are all after the buried treasure.
On the flip side, Jack had begun to think that Marian is mixed up with Pickering and she is the one who had told him about his disappearance from the mansion. Jack turns revengeful against her, despite his initial adoration and love for her. Jack even starts doubting Bates. Everybody seems to be involved in the conspiracy against him.
At last, an enormous twist unfolds in the story when through a secret passageway concealed inside the chimneypiece, Jack’s grandfather steps in. He had never died. All this time, he had been living isolated in Egypt. He had actually plotted this entire drama for various reasons. Firstly, he wanted to know who was actually faithful to him. Pickering was not. And second, he wanted Jack to pay attention to his architectural expertise, by uncovering the clues he had hidden inside various places in the mansion. Only two people knew about the truth about his grandfather. One was Bates and the other was Marian. The old man also reveals a box of treasure that he had hidden inside an iron safe tucked behind the chimneypiece.
The novel wraps up with a happy ending with Jack’s love for Marian rekindled into a marriage and he becoming the sole owner of his grandfather’s inheritance.
The novel features elaborate descriptions and classical retro-themed writing style, interesting purpose-driven characters and a plot characterized by a thrilling mystery and tidbits of romance adding to the perfume of the storyline. I totally enjoyed reading it, and so will you if like to read mysteries and adventure thrillers.
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