Customer Reviews

The Unexpected Guest

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Even though I am 13 years of age, I have read about three-quarters of the books Agatha Christie has written. Most of the books I have read by her I found to be flawless and exciting. I am a devoted fan of her books and refuse to read other murder-mysteries. When I found out there was a "new" Agatha Christie book out I went straight to the shops to buy it. I found the book to be very enjoyable and even though it only took me 24 hours to read it (I couldn't put it down and stayed up 'till the early hours of the morning to read it until I got caught and had to go to sleep) I thought it was excellent. I usually find that the beginning of Agatha Christie books are a bit confusing but this was one of the least. The murder in the book is a masked mystery until the sureness is proved wrong. I found the book didn't have much suspense but I don't think it mattered. Charles Osborne writes very much like Agatha Christie and he even added things that Agatha Christie didn't usually add like a map of the room the murder occured in. For all people who read and liked The Murder of Roger Ackroyd this book is an absolute must.

It's November in South Wales. A stranded motorist walks up on a house for help, but finds a murder instead. And so Christie's play, The Unexpected Guest, now novelized by Charles Osborne, begins. The gentleman, Mark Starkwedder, after knocking, walks into an unlocked terrace door in hopes of calling for help, what he stumbles on is Richard Warwick dead in his wheel chair, and the wife, Laura Warwick, standing in the dark with the gun. I don't want to go any further because the rest is vital to the mystery and how it gets so out of control. Included in the mystery are Mr. Warwick's mother, a brother, a valet, a housekeeper, a nurse, a neighbor, a Chief Inspector, and a detective. Each character is introduced and each part is vital to the plot. The plot is classic British traditional with 9/10 of the scenes being played out in one room (map included), characters coming and going, a moody Chief Inspector, a mellow detective, and a lot of impressive curves, with the ending being the ultimate curve.

Charles Osborne has done his best to novelize a rare treat, and in my humble opinion, he did a grand job. The scenes and conversation, to me, were true to the play, almost to the point that, while reading, I could envision the characters on stage. Now I've heard the complaints-- "It's to slow." "It's to confined." Well, it was a play, and that is the reasoning for the limited movement and conversation. I think readers should appreciate that Mr. Osborne has brought to life another wonderful Christie mystery. It's a great Christie fix for those fans that have read or seen all her mysteries.

Charles Osborne is an authority on theater and opera. He is also a writer and has authored The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie and novelized Agatha Christie's other play, Black Coffee.

Being an avid mystery fan and a great fan of Agatha Christie, I was delighted when I came upon this novel. My delight turned to dismay as I started reading this "novel". I use this term loosely since it reads more like the play that it was originally meant to be. The book reminded me of a Nancy Drew mystery , which were favorites of mine in the fifth grade. If I ever get a craving for a good old fashioned Agatha Christie mystery, I'll just have to re-read one of her classics, and enjoy watching her plays performed on stage, as Miss Christie intended.

When I first read a novel adaptation of an Agatha Christie play titled 'Black Coffee' I was in awe of the story and twitsed plot of it all. I knew that the follow up, 'The Unexpected Guest' was going to be a killer book. One of the best mysteries I have read! There is a reason why Agatha Christie has been repsonsible for the sales of over 2 billion books, they are just so damn good! I very much enjoyed this book, as you will too. The ending is the added bonus! You never knew, you just never knew!

Agatha Christie once more proves that things aren't always what they seem. When I was about halfway through the book, I was convinced that I knew the outcome and had, finally, after reading so many of Christie's mysteries, conquered her ingeniousness. But in the end, I realized that I was once again mistaken. Although I greatly appreciate the beautiful writing techniques that Christie uses, I sometimes prefer the writing of Charles Osborne. I find that he uses words that I am more familiar with and less outdated, and he does not prolong the beginning of the book. He seems to get more to the point, and this keeps me intrigued throughout the book. After reading Black Coffee, I knew that I must read The Unexpected Guest. The only fault that I found in this book was of my own opinion--I did not like the ending. I am a fan of Hercule Poirot's triumphant cases, but I disliked the very end (although I liked the twist to it). Moreover, this inadequacy proved too imparticular for me to rate this book less than five stars.

This is the 2nd and middle book of the 3 Osborne adaptations of Agatha Christie plays into novel form. I think it's the middling of the three in quality as well. The 1st was "Black Coffee" and the 3rd was "Spider's Web." All 3 read more like plays than novels--so if you are expecting the normal Christie novel, you may very well be disappointed. However, if you have read the novels, this is a lovely addition to your list of Christie's and a rare opportunity to envision her plays. True, the plays could just as easily have been bound and published. But, Osborne has apparently done little, if anything, to detract from the plays themselves. So, IMHO, he has done a service both to Christie and to the mystery reading public by publishing these works. As for the content, this particular work is great fun! I loved the story, the twists and turns (and there are many of them), the cleverness, etc. It IS after all, a Christie! And quite a good one at that. Enjoy!

Osborne adds nothing to our pleasure, and the way he expands tags of the stage directions is pretty irritating. I hope they paid him a lot of money to do these hack jobs on Christie's already perfect plays, because he sure killed whatever credibility he had as a poet, critic and essayist. HJe wrote a good book on Agatha Christie, but why go to him to turn the plays into novels? Surely a fiction writer would have been a better choice.

The Unexpected Guest wasn't even one of Christie's plays but when it is played properly on stage the character of Richard Warwick gets analyzed from many different perspectives until it becomes like Citizen Kane, a prism of a dead man's life. For better or worse (and usually for worse) he affected the lives of everyone around him--his wife, his mother, his retarded half-brother Jan, and others. I wonder what Christie originally intended to do with her tale's biggest loophole--what happened to Nurse Warburton, the corrupt nurse whom Richard Warwick bribed to give false testimony during the inquest into the death of the boy he ran over? I always imagine that, if the police dug deeper, they would find that "Warby" had been murdered also--shot to death, just like Richard. What do you fans think?

This adaption of Christie's play has a corker beginning that pulls you in from the first word. The characters are all deliberate red herrings to throw you off the scent of the mystery, so the ending really delivers the goods. The obvious is made not quite so obvious until you realize, it was very obvious after all. Fun reading contains some of Christie's most clever plotting. Osborne has done a great job with the limitations of the original story. I thought this was more rewarding than Black Coffee and certainly had much more fascinating people in it.

After getting his car stuck in a ditch next to a desolate road hidden in thick mist, Michael Starkwedder walks to a cottage to get some help. To his surprise he notices that the front door of the cottage is ajar. Once inside the house he finds a woman with a gun in her hand, crouched next to a lifeless body. The woman, Laura Warwick, immediately admits to having killed her husband. Michael decides to help the woman to cover up her crime, but never expected to get involved so deeply into the intrigues of a guilt ridden family.

The Unexpected Guest is an original play by Christie and as such not based upon a novel or short story. The play opened at the Duchess Theatre, London, on August 12, 1958, and ran for 604 performances. It is considered to be one of the better Christie plays, but cannot be compared to her absolute masterpiece The Mousetrap. Charles Osborne, the nephew of Christie, did an excellent job in translating the play into a full novel. The original Christie touch is still present and by reading the book you can almost smell the theater curtains and hear the silent coughing of the audience. No question about this: Christie would have loved this adaptation.

This one's a classic Christie. My favorite Christie books are non-Poiroit's and non-Miss Marples' (like this one).
It all starts when a man has his car stuck in a ditch in the middle of the night. He stumbles into a house looking for help and knocks on the window. No one answers so he comes in (he finds the door open.) He goes downstairs until he sees a man in a wheelchair. When the old man doesn't respond, the protagonist (I forgot his name) assumes he is asleep, until he sees blood and turns around to find a woman with a revolver in her hand. She does not lie, instead she just admits what she has done. The main character does not call the cops, but decides he wants to help the charming young woman. Together, they make false evidence pointing towards a man whose son was once killed by the victim. We are soon introduced to many other characters, and that's when the detective and sergeant are introduced. I kept guessing until the end, when one of the characters, the mentaly disabled one shoots the cop, and so I thought that he was the killer and that was it. But I read on and there was a mind-shattering twist, and the ending is simply the best one out of the many, many Agatha Christie books I have read so far. YOU WON"T BELIEVE IT!!!
I strongly recommend this book to anyone-children or adults.
You'll love it.