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The Under Dog and Other Stories / by Agatha Christie ; narrated by David Suchet and Hugh Fraser

The Under Dog and Other Stories (Audio) - David Suchet, Hugh Fraser, Agatha Christie

This was a collection of short stories featuring Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot.  Short stories are generally not my favorite things to read, and mysteries in short story format are especially unsatisfying to me.  In this case, though, I did enjoy these mini Poirot adventures.  The first story in the collection (The Under Dog), and the last story (Adventure of Clapham) were especially enjoyable to me, although I liked Submarine Plans as well.

 

These stories were a stripped down Agatha Christie.  There wasn't a lot of twisting and turning, not a lot of red herrings, just Poirot getting it done.  Although short, the stories were still complex and the mysteries were not easily unraveled.  

 

The best part of listening to this book in audio book format, was the narration done by Hugh Fraser and David Suchet.  Suchet was especially diverse in the way he voiced various characters, and his accents, English, Belgian, French, Australian, and American, were all very nicely done.

 

As I say, short stories aren't usually my favorite, and while I enjoyed this collection it takes a lot for me to truly engage with short stories.  Many of these didn't particularly stand out for me, and I could probably read several of these again as if it were my first time with them.  I definitely liked this collection better than The Mousetrap and Other Plays (I do think Christie's plays are weaker than her novels and short stories), but it wasn't a collection of short stories that will particularly stick with me.  That doesn't mean I won't try other Christie collections in the future.