Review: The Agatha Christie Book Club
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 24, 2013
Alicia Finlay lives with her sister Lynette and dog Max in Sydney. Faced with the latest Pulitzer Prize-Winning novel, and disapproving members, at her book club, she decides to leave and read the books she wants to read - so she begins the Agatha Christie Book Club. She advertises and gains a mix of members: Claire Hargreaves, who runs a vintage clothes shop, the dishy Dr Anders Bright, housewife Barbara Parlour, paleontonolist Perry Gordon and gregarious librarian Missy Corner. One member, however, are not what they appear and when Barbara goes missing, Alicia decides to act sleuth and track her down.This is a pleasant enough mystery, with lots of nods to Christie (probably my favourite author of all time) and her books. The real problem for me was that Alicia had only met Barbara twice and yet felt so responsible for her - including putting other members of the club in possible danger, badgering the missing woman's (unpleasant) family and becoming overly defensive if anyone questioned her role in the mystery. Alicia's intolerance made her less likeable and made the whole story feel rather forced. Saying that, it had a lot of positives and I would be intrigued to see if the author could make a second outing of the group more realistic.