Three blind mice and other stories by Agatha Christie - book review

One thing that I’ve been consciously following is to watch out for the timeline when the book that I read had been first written. I began this as a practice, after reading a foreword from Sujatha on one of his short stories book, requesting the readers to give consideration that some of the stories from the collection where works of a young man in his initial years as an author, decades ago. It was a very powerful point and made me realize that, even though the themes may sound done and dusted and very redundant/repetitive, easily guessable, probably for the time when they were first launched, those themes and stories would’ve been trendsetters and pioneers. Same goes for this book as well.
It is not one but a collection of stories, but considering that the first and biggest of the lot being the best of the pick, the book is probably named after that story itself – Three blind mice. The story is set in England, doesn’t involve Poirot or Marple and the weather (winter) plays a role in the entire premise. It is the typical whodunnit thriller of the erstwhile era, where in a bunch of folks gather in a place, unable to move out and suddenly discover a murderer in their midst. In comes a policeman, despite all odds in commute and the cat-and-mouse thriller reaches a crescendo with the grand reveal and arrest of the villain. Of the couple of books that I’ve read by her, the setup was consistent. With close read, one can actually feel the palpable tension and mounting suspense. In some cases, it is easy to guess who the murderer is, having seen innumerous movies, being based on this theme or on this very story itself. Three blind mice is a classic in everyway and one can easily visualize eastman color movies in Hindi and tamil, with the lead pair and their friends donning garrulous and blinding bright color costumes, dancing to catchy and peppy themes, with dark as death villains terrorizing them during the nights, followed by screeching loud BGM’s, the story packs them all. It is an uncomplicated and unadulterated attempt at describing a murder mystery with the setup involving near normal people. No needless deviations or psychological sob stories. Even the mental issues are trodden lightly with the focus never wavering out of the venue where all the actions happen.
Haven’t finished the book yet but rest of the stories are more so and so type only. Marple series are very low key mysteries, may be considering the aged character? Still would definitely recommend this book for leisure reading. Not very many foreign words as well.