I purchased this book for my own collection.
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Published: September 2, 2025 (first published 1952)
Summary:
In Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, one of Agatha Christie’s most ingenious mysteries, the intrepid Hercule Poirot must look into the case of a brutally murdered landlady.
Mrs. McGinty died from a brutal blow to the back of her head. Suspicion falls immediately on her shifty lodger, James Bentley, whose clothes reveal traces of the victim’s blood and hair. Yet something is amiss: Bentley just doesn’t seem like a murderer.
Could the answer lie in an article clipped from a newspaper two days before the death? With a desperate killer still free, Hercule Poirot will have to stay alive long enough to find out. . . .
My thoughts:
February’s theme for #ReadChristie2026 was Beloved Character(s) and I went with the official pick, Mrs. McGinty’s Dead.
This book features two of Agatha Christie’s iconic characters–Hercule Poirot and Ariadne Oliver. I am quite partial to Hercule Poirot, so anytime I have a chance to pick a book featuring him, I’m going to do so. I am less familiar with Ariadne Oliver, a character Christie fashioned as a mystery novelist – almost like an alter ego for herself. She appeared in 6 novels with Hercule Poirot and one stand-alone, and this is only the 2nd book I’ve read with her in it, the other one being Hallowe’en Party.
This is one of the Hercule Poirot books I had not read, so I was excited to pick it up. My mystery of the whodunit kept me fully engaged–there were all the usual red herrings and twists to keep me guessing all the way–but I also loved the humor that was woven in throughout.
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