It wasn’t bad, but it was a little boring. I missed Hercule Poirot in this one. You begin to see him later on in the book, and he barely involves himself in the investigation. Having said that, this one took me a bit more time to find out who was the murderer. 

Book twenty-one of my personal read through of Agatha Christie in (American) publication order.

The mystery was really solid here, probably could have been five stars except for some personal disappointments in the character arc realm. 

I have a handful of physical copies of Agatha Christie that I liberated from my mum’s collection (before her collection mysteriously vanished). Most of them make sense: Five Little Pigs is my favourite, And Then There Were None is a classic, Murder is Easy and By the Pricking of My Thumbs fall into the ‘creepy’ category I favour. I’m honestly not sure why I added Three Act Tragedy to the mix… 

Three Act Tragedy is one of those Agatha Christie novels with a really clever concept, one that’s not seen in any of her other books (at least, if memory serves). Unfortunately, that’s kind of all it has, and it’s hard to talk about in a review without spoiling it. Suffice it to say: the concept works extremelywell, turning usual murder mystery conventions on their head the same way that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd does. Hercule Poriots thoughts on dealing with the murder the way it is (not the way you wish it could be) and building a case as you’d build a house of cards work well both which this particular murder and with Hercule Poirot’s cases in general. Unlike some other Agatha Christie novels, the red herrings are believable, though not quite as numerous as the cast might merit.

Where Three Act Tragedy really falls down is the book-specific characters. Sir Charles Cartwright and Egg (Hermione) Lytton Gore aren’t particularly interesting, especially since their entire personalities seem to centre on the romance between them. Egg, in particular, comes to life exclusively when Sir Charles is absent, which is a shame. Sir Charles delivers some good clues, but is otherwise unmemorable, as are most of the suspects. Agatha Christie’s writing is sharp, and there are some lovely moments of observation, but there’s no atmosphere to any of the settings in Three Act Tragedy like there are in some of the other novels. 

All of which amounts to the impression that Three Act Tragedy is a lovely puzzle mystery, but perhaps not a novel which merits much rereading once the solution is known.

I was a little bit disappointed about this one, especially freshly coming after the exquisitely-crafted mystery in And Then There Were None.
 
I was not able to guess the suspect, the mystery still had enough twist-and-turns for me to enjoy; it was a good plot overall, but it went on a little too long, and getting on a bit confusing. After the Second Act I got tired, it just seemed like the story started to drag and I wish they would pick up the pace. Poirot had a minor role in this, as the story requested a star role in another main character, and I was sadden by that, since he was the only one I came here for.

The new characters were the most unappealing part of the novel. I just could not get into them, especially Egg Lytton Gore in the first half. I totally understand that this book was a product of its time, that Agatha Christie was just writing about whatever was suitable for her during that era but STILL. Miss Egg was kind of annoying ngl. Her instant hatred of other women when she thought there was someone in the way of 'getting her man' (so to speak) was, A LOT, to say the least. I was writing in my reading journals that 'why are we obsessing over this one particular mid-aged white man in the country idk,' because girl you won't miss him you won't miss another. (good thing I did see her in a new light in the latter half)

Also, an observation that I was now three books in and starting to realize, that if I am to continue this journey of the many great Agatha Christie novels, i must suffer from her (very unnecessary but frequent) racist remarks towards well any people of colours but especially black folks. Her talent on writing murder mysteries was well-praised but her skill of whipping out the n word here and there in the most random places just UNPROVOKED?? Astounding. They were out of nowhere and shocked me every time. You could just say someone was admiring a statue, nobody would bat an eyelash, but NOOO, mrs. Christie must let the reader know with an unnecessary n word. WHY??? 

All in all, this novel was alright, but not her best work.