Title: At Bertram’s Hotel
Author: Agatha Christie
Genre: Mystery, Fiction, Classics
Publication Date: January 1, 1965
Review Date: March 1, 2021
Number of Pages: 320 (e-book)
My Rating: 4.5/5
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Book Blurb of At Bertram’s Hotel:
An old-fashioned London Hotel is not quite as reputable as it makes out! When Miss Marple comes up from the country for a holiday in London, she finds what she’s looking for at Bertram’s Hotel: traditional décor and impeccable service. But she senses an unmistakable atmosphere of danger behind the highly polished veneer. Not even Miss Marple can foresee the violent chain of events set in motion when an eccentric guest makes his way to the airport on the wrong day!
Book Review of At Bertram’s Hotel:
After a super long break from all things internet except for work, I’m back with a review! This is also because I had taken a long break from reading, and what better to get out of a reading slump and back in the reading and reviewing space, than my very dependable Agatha Christie!
To be fair, I had read this book very many years ago – in fact, it was one of my first Agatha Christie books ever. I remember that I really enjoyed it, but happily did not remember much of the story. Bertram’s hotel is a wonderful place, a place where time seems to stand still. A living, breathing, beautiful relic of the Victorian era, that Miss Marple is visiting. As tends to happen to her, she is thrown into the thick of things, and as we know, ends up helping solve the mystery.
Food descriptions in this book are so wonderful, I ended up craving a lot of those things, which, because I’m not British nor was alive 80 years ago, I was unlikely to get. The characters are all very well fleshed out, and Christie is a master of describing things extremely well in very few words or phrases. This has always made me understand, connect and sometimes even empathize with her characters on some level, irrespective of whether or not I find them relatable or even likeable.
The mystery part of it, which is the actual intended important part of the book (my food obsession notwithstanding), is also pretty damn good. A novel concept, for sure, and one I could not figure out at all while reading it. In a way, it IS good to forget the story of books you’ve read so you can enjoy reading them all over again. Now if only I could forget the story of Gone Girl or Harry Potter or Dorian Gray or something like that.
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