The Clocks

 The Clocks (1963) by Agatha Christie (read by Robin Bailey)

This is a reread for me (as are nearly all Christie stories) and I reviewed it in detail last year. (HERE) So, I'm not going to do so here. This will be more of a story about listening to the story.

When traveling up to my parents' house in Wabash, I like to listen to audio novels to make the three hour trip go by quickly. My preference for audio novels (especially when driving and concentrating on traffic) is to listen to stories I've already read so if I miss a bit here or there it won't matter so much. And when my son goes with me, it's especially fun to take an Agatha Christie along to see him react to various clues and red herrings. It was great fun to listen to him point out certain features that I knew were leading him astray and the experience also gave me more time to appreciate some of the humor in Christie's narrative that I had missed before. What is really interesting is that just like last time--I remembered the main culprit (of the murder portion of the plot), but Christie still fooled me on the motive. I'd completely forgotten about that connection.

The best part of this audio experience was sharing it with my son. He is definitely not his mother's child when it comes to books and I treasure every time we can connect over novels like this. Road trips to his grandparents seem to make for good times for sharing a story and I'm pleased that he enjoys the Christie mysteries enough to listen along with me. He even asked to have the remaining disks so he could finish the book (six hours wasn't quite enough time to reach the grand finale). A definite win for his book-loving mom!

I stand by the ★★★  and 1/2 rating (average of book and audio performance ratings) that I gave this last June.

First line: The afternoon of the 9th of September was exactly like any other afternoon.

Last lines: Our friend Colin has married that girl. If you ask me, he's mad. All the best. Yours, Richard Hardcastle.

****************

Deaths = 3 (two stabbed; one strangled)