Book Review: The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah

Goodreads

Summary: " Hercule Poirot's quiet supper in a London coffeehouse is interrupted when a young woman confides to him that she is about to be murdered.  She is terrified – but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer. Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done.

Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at a fashionable London Hotel have been murdered, and a cufflink has been placed in each one’s mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman? While Poirot struggles to put together the bizarre pieces of the puzzle, the murderer prepares another hotel bedroom for a fourth victim..."

Let me say this straightaway: I was very disappointed with this book. It did not deserve to have 'Agatha Christie' written on the cover. It is not an Agatha Christie book and it is not an Agatha Christie pastiche. I sincerely don't know what it is.

Ok, that doesn't mean that Agatha Christie's novels are perfect. In no way they are. Yes, they have plot holes, there are some things that you honestly can't help but think: 'yeah, it makes sense, but in no way it would have been that easy to pull off'. However, they are incredibly entertaining. And what makes them even more entertaining is the human factor. The characters are three-dimensional and you can feel them. As the Doctor say in 'The Unicorn and the Wasp', Christie is good because she understands.  And she also makes us understand. A complex murder normally has a very simple explanation and a straightforward reason. You can see why the person was dead and you can see how the murderer pulled it, even if you not quite think everything would be that simple.

The mystery and the solution of this book are so convoluted you simply cannot accept it. The back story that made set everything in motion is so ridiculous that I simply couldn't believe that three people would be killed because of that. I also do not think it would have reached the proportions it did. They talk about it like it was this huge disaster and I was expecting something a lot more serious.

Another thing that didn't work for me was the narrator. Catchpool has to be the most annoying, idiotic narrator and the most dumb police officer in the history of mystery novels. He not only leaves the crime scene unprotected because he cannot deal with the dead bodies, he has to complain all the time and not do any detecting whatsoever. He expects all the answers to be handed to him by Poirot. He also has a "dark" past, which is shown to us with lots of italics. The author makes a big deal of it and then tell us what it is by chapter three. And when we do find out what the problem is it is something so unimportant I simply cannot understand the relevance of it to the plot.

Have I mentioned that he does not do any detecting? Because he doesn't. He goes to the village where the whole story started and then keeps complaining that everybody is avoiding him. He spends the most part of the journey whining. I don't think it ever crosses his mind to go to the village's constabulary, that's how good he is at his job.

However, my biggest problem of all was not with Catchpool or the mystery itself. It was with Poirot. Simply because it was not Poirot. It was a character that shares a name with him. Not only this Poirot only drinks coffee, he also gets annoyed, red in the face, and screams at people every too often. He doesn't explain how he came to his conclusions and only repeats the same facts over and over.

The last 100 pages consist of every character telling the same story and Poirot 'explaining' what happened to a clueless audience and a clueless Catchpool. The denouement takes forever. By the time we actually get to know what happened I was so bored that I didn't care about it anymore. I just wanted the book to be over.

I'm really disappointed with it. I don't know why the choice of a new narrator, much less one so idiotic as this one. I would have preferred Hastings. Yes, Hastings is not smart, but he is not a Scotland Yard detective as is Catchpool. I don't understand how this person got to be in Scotland Yard in the first place and why he chose to be a police officer to start with.

Honestly, it was a big waste of time. But, what can I say, I couldn't resist a new Poirot novel and, to be completely honest, if there are more books to this series, I'll probably read them too. I know, I don't learn with my mistakes. But there is always the hope that it will get better. 

Rating: 2 stars