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Review
‘Like a Martini – crisp, dry, sophisticated, habit-forming – will satisfy all devotees of Christie neat plotting.’ Booklist
--This text refers to the Unknown Binding edition.Review
'Like a Martini -- crisp, dry, sophisticated, habit-forming -- will satisfy all devotees of Christie neat plotting.' Booklist
--This text refers to the
Unknown Binding
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
This pack consists of two full-cast dramatizations of stories by Ms Christie. In "The Unexpected Guest", a passing house-hunter, Michael Starkwedder, runs his car off the road in a fog. Reaching the nearest house, he finds a woman standing over the dead body of her husband, a gun in her hand. Rather than ring the police, he helps her concoct a story that might exhonerate her.
As you would expect from Miss Christie, this is a story with lots of twists, lots of suspects and red-herrings. The cast are very good, relishing their roles and making each character distinctive. It really is like watching a play in the theatre.
The Pale Horse has always been one of my favourite Christie stories. It's tale of witchcraft, black magic and death wished from afar makes it a unique entry in Christie's work. Mark Easterbrook discovers that people whose name appears on a certain list all died suddenly. The only connection appears to be The Pale Horse, a converted cottage inhabited by three women, who claim to be able to control certain elemental forces. Of course, such an idea is too wild to be credible, and yet those people died.
The air of menace in this story is palpable. The cast really shine, and the denouement is as brilliant as anything in the Christie canon.
As you would expect from Miss Christie, this is a story with lots of twists, lots of suspects and red-herrings. The cast are very good, relishing their roles and making each character distinctive. It really is like watching a play in the theatre.
The Pale Horse has always been one of my favourite Christie stories. It's tale of witchcraft, black magic and death wished from afar makes it a unique entry in Christie's work. Mark Easterbrook discovers that people whose name appears on a certain list all died suddenly. The only connection appears to be The Pale Horse, a converted cottage inhabited by three women, who claim to be able to control certain elemental forces. Of course, such an idea is too wild to be credible, and yet those people died.
The air of menace in this story is palpable. The cast really shine, and the denouement is as brilliant as anything in the Christie canon.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
On a very foggy night in Wales, Michael Starkwedder runs his car into a ditch. He goes to the nearest house where he finds Laura Warwick who confesses to having murdered her husband, Richard, a person confined to a wheelchair.
Instead of calling the police, he coaxes Laura into telling her story. She provides him with the details of why and how she killed her abusive spouse. Michael agrees to help her hide the truth by blaming it on someone else. Laura chooses MacGregor. The Canadian tourist hates Richard for running over his child in a DUI incident in which the law dropped the charges against the pompous Richard. Sergeant Cadwallader and Inspector Thomas investigate only to learn that the Canadian died two years ago. What is the nest step for Michael and Laura?
BLACK COFFEE, the latest adaptation of an Agatha Christie play, was an entertaining novella that fans fully enjoyed. The second "Agatha light" tale, THE UNEXPECTED GUEST, is an entertaining story that continues to stays true to the twists that became the trademark of the great Ms. Christie. Charles Osborne does a brilliant conversion that will please fans of the famous novelist and bring in new readers who will hunt for one-hundred per cent pure Christie works.
Harriet Klausner
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
While many did not like the previous novel adapted by Charles Osborne, "Black Coffee" was an inferior play to begin with, much like many of Agatha Christie's own short stories.
This new novel, "Unexpected Guest", was from a more complicated story and thus is a more satisfying experience by comparison: and Charles Osborne's knowledge of Christies really show. I suppose anyone who has read his excellent biography on Agatha Christie would know that already. The novel reads like a vintage Christie, and I am very happy with the experience, and would recommend it heartily to not only Christie fans, but to new readers who wants to start of with one of Christie's more exciting plots, without the burden of excessive setups (like Death on the Nile).
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
No Mystery
Cannot fault audio quality.Well read and easy to follow .Clearly narrated in English which sounds the way it should. Will definitely purchase more.
Published 6 months ago by Sminthillus
The Unexpected Guest
The stories on these two CD,s are very good. I particularly liked the Unexpected Guest. The stories have a twist in the tale and are very much in Christie's style. Read more
Published 6 months ago by bigles45
Superb
Another superb Agatha Christie drama for my collection.
Listening to The Unexpected Guest was almost as good as being at the theatre. Read more
Listening to The Unexpected Guest was almost as good as being at the theatre. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Carmel
Absolute Bargain
You get 2 CDs, total time 2 hrs 35 minutes.
The two stories are totally unrelated. I enjoyed listening to them both at bed-time, in half-hour sessions. Read more
The two stories are totally unrelated. I enjoyed listening to them both at bed-time, in half-hour sessions. Read more
Published 16 months ago by J. Penfold
BBC PLAY
Both these plays were excellent. Well acted and far better than watching them on Television. I used to enjoy Radio 4's plays but do not find them as good lately. Read more
Published 18 months ago by sandraruby
the unexpected guest
I expected to be brought into the plot and i found the presenters to be unintersting. For me this was boring
Published on 14 April 2010 by Mrs. D. Swinbourne
The Unexpected Guest
This was a bit like being in the theatre. The atmosphere was there and the 'play' was handled brilliantly. Read more
Published on 13 April 2006 by L. Taylor
'Of misty nights, murder and french windows'
Penned in only four weeks this Agatha Christie murder mystery was originally written as a play in 1958, but has recently been adapted as a novel by Charles Osborne. Read more
Published on 8 May 2002
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