The first of Christie's Hercule Poirot novels, I was still fairly impressed with her mystery skill. Christie is without a doubt the master of misdirection and red herrings. I didn't love this as much as some of her other reads, but I still have to admit that she did a magnificent job keeping me guessing (and heavily doubting myself during the portions I did have the right culprit) until the end.

These novels are admittedly dated and do show some issues with lack of political correctness, but they are a product of their time, so I do give lenience on that to a certain degree.

The writing was good, but not quite as smooth as in her later novels. Still, the plot moved well and the pacing was right on target. This was a quick and easy read, though it did have a bit of complexity to the number of characters to keep straight and the suspicious to follow. Not Christie's best, but still certainly worth the read.