Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 No sight of Poirot! November 24, 2008
I am an ardent fan of Agatha Christie but this book was a bit let down when it came to Poirot!, he was introduced in the plot when 3/4 th of the book was read! and the reader was not given a clue regarding the culprit. These 2 are the underlying strenghts of Agatha Christie which was mising in the book.Still a 4 star as the narration was excellent, as usual!
 My favourite Christie book so far. March 21, 2008
I loved this book and read it in a few days. If mystery is your thing, I highly recommand you read this book. It is very fun and original. I always try and guess who the murderer could be but this one, I had to keep on changing my mind. In the end I couldn't guess and I just had my suspisions. This book has the most delightful characters and with three murders is is highly entertaining! You should read this book!
Really good book October 25, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is an enjoyable book, and it is interesting to read about murders happening at a school. It is not perhaps quite as good as most of the other reviews have implied, it is certainly an enjoyable story, but there are better ones.
It is a new school year in an all girls school and things start off fairly typically, until the unpopular games mistress is found shot in the middle of the night. For most of the students, this seems an interesting thing to happen in a school, but when two more murders occur, and one of the students is abducted, everydoy has a sudden sense of fear and it stops being an exciting thing to happen in school and changes to something terrifying.
I found this novel highly enjoyable, but some of the other reviewers are implying that it is a masterpiece and in my opinion it is far from it. Unlike in some of Christie's masterpieces, there is little clever set up of subtle clues and there are barely any clues to use to guess the identity of the murderer and the only real way of finding out was something that one of the mothers saw on the first day of school. The identity of the murderer was a surprise to me.
Despite some of the flaws I have stated, this is still a great book and I reccomend it.
Rich Vintage Christie. May 2, 2005
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
This is one of my favorite books from Agatha Christie's later years. Her grip of story telling, plotting and planning is still strong. There is some humor in the narrative and amusement is provided by many of the characters. Agatha Christie tries her hand at the girls' school setting here. Older reader will suspect that she was well-acquainted with similar settings chosen by A A Milne and Dorothy Sayers, and that she had been brought up on the once popular school girl annuals. Of course there needs to be a raison d'être behind the series of murders that occurs at the school and this is well narrated also. I have mentioned the narration several times. It is an element that helps explain this writer's phenomenal popularity. She gets the timing right. Other writers in this genre produce more elegant prose but somehow fail in this regard. At this time in her career, Agatha Christie was experimenting with narrative methods. She attempted the "quick scene change" method here, and brings it off with skill and flair. She also, at this time in her career, frequently milked the situation where something was briefly glimpsed in a mirror, or a familiar face briefly glimpsed at a great distance. Watch out for these occurrences as you turn the pages to reach Hercule Poirot's final revelation of just who is the cat among the pigeons.
Stupendous December 7, 2002
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This was the first Agatha Chrisie story that I ever read, and although I have now read, listened and watched my way through almost the entire back catalogue, I have yet to find any that is quite as good as this one.
'Cat Among the Pigeons' strikes the right balance between Christie's two main pre-occupations: international intrigue and simple human nature. It is the convergence of two worlds, that of the exclusive, sedate English girls' school and revolution and espionnage in the Middle East. As well as being a superb whodunnit, this book is also a heart-warming tale of human interaction. Characters are sensitively drawn and the plot, whist not exactly realistic, is not so removed from the realms of possibility as some others. And it is remarkable fast paced. You will not rest until the solution has been revealed. The advantage of these unabridged HarperCollins audio productions is that you can listen to them on mass. They are perfect for a family evening in. Hugh Fraser is the ideal narrator, with a plethora of different voices to draw upon which competantly bring the tale to life. In short, you will not regret buying this. It is possibly the best thing Agatha Christie, Queen of Crime, ever wrote.
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