Agatha Christie "Witness for the Prosecution" (Diane)

    Book Review: "The witness for the Prosecution and other                                                         stories" 

During the holidays, I read “The witness for the prosecution and other stories” by the well-known author : Agatha Christie (1948). As its title says, this book is about 11 short stories including: murder mysteries (with the famous Hercule Poirot), haunted houses and deep family secrets.

Throughout the book, I really appreciated two short stories. The first one is named “Red signal”, here’s a short summary of the plot.

Dermot, Sir Alington and Jack were having a nice dinner party when they decided to invite a medium to conduct a sitting. Finally, when she arrived, she had a feeling of danger. She warned the three men not to go home that night because otherwise danger would find them. 

When the dinner party ended, Dermot went back to his flat. He was also assailed by the feeling of danger.

In the morning, when he woke up, he found in his closet a revolver. Suddenly, the police knocked at the door. They were here to arrest him for murder. Last night Sir Alington was shot in the chest by a revolver!

Who killed Sir Alington ? Why was someone trying to frame him ? Who told the police he had done it ?

Here is another short story I really appreciated called “S.O.S.” and summary of its plot.

A family was about to eat dinner, when they hear a knock at the door.

It’s Mortimer Cleveland a well-known mental scientist. He was driving near the house when his car broke. The family gently offered him to stay. They seemed hospitable but Cleveland felt that something was not right.

Going up to bed, Mortimer realized that on his bedtable three letters were engraved : S.O.S... This confirmed his suspicions. He didn’t know it yet but he was about to discover a deep family secret...

Who engraved those letters? What message was this person trying to send? What is wrong with the Dinsmead family?

My thoughts about this book: I really liked having 11 thrilling short stories with different styles and mechanisms.

For example, you’ll be reading horror stories, murder mysteries with the famous Hercule Poirot and paranormalstories. Every ending will be different in its own way! You’ll never get bored by them (If one of them isn’t interesting you’ll still be able to skip it without missing any crucial information). That’s why I really liked this book. 

However, I found some of the short stories very long and had a hard time staying focused on the plot. I also found it hard to continue reading them when they weren’t interesting to me.

In conclusion, I would recommend this book to every type of reader. No matter if you already read some Agatha Christie’s novels or if you haven’t; it won’t be hard to understand! Not only is it a good and thrilling book, but also with those 11 different short stories I’m certain you will appreciate at least 3 of them.

And besides, I’m also sure you want to know who killed Sir Alington, and what deep family secret Cleveland has found!

You can buy your book here !