I pretty much whizzed through all of Towards Zero yesterday while working on this weekend's "deep-clean one" project (which is actually not so much a case of "clean one" but of catching up with things long overdue to be taken care of).  As it's book-related, there may eventually be photos.

Anyway, back to Towards Zero ... what can I say but that it's been confirmed, yet again, as one of my favorite "non-Poirot" books by Christie?  Although technically, that isn't quite correct, as Poirot is not only name-checked; he is name-checked because this is the kind of case in which he'd excel -- one that very much relies on psychology.  Plus, it's got tons of characters I like ... and I love how even after we already seem to know the solution, Christie nevertheless still manages to "put one over" on us and twist the story's tail.

I've now moved on to Ordeal by Innocence -- where someone just referred to what we today call "helicoper parenting" as "smotherlove".  Don't know whether this was actually a word when the book was written, but it definitely should have been!

Audible.de has "double feature" deals on a bunch of the Hugh Fraser / Agatha Christie audios at the moment, so for this buddy read I decided to use one of my credits for those (even though I already have the CD versions of both, but what the heck, it's Christie and Captain Hastings)!

Just got through the prologue.  Let the inexorable path "Towards Zero" begin!

Sometimes, I try something new. I’ll pick up an author I haven’t read before, without recommendations from trusted friends, on the strength of the synopsis and a scan of reviews from total strangers. It’s worth the gamble of my precious reading time, because I’ve occasionally found new authors and their whole back catalogs and future work to enjoy. This time, the gamble did not pay off. The characters were all too annoying, the suspension of disbelief required to accept some of these characters and events too great, and the mystery not compelling enough to keep me reading. DNF at 36%.

Audiobook, borrowed from my public library via Overdrive.

I attempted to read this book for the Booklikes Halloween Bingo 2019, for the square Amateur Sleuth: This mystery will have a main character who is not a member of law enforcement. I have another audiobook in mind as a substitute for this square.

Prior Updates:

Sep11 17%

I'm not too sure about this one. Somehow I both dislike all the characters and also am bored by them and the mystery. 

I really enjoyed this one a lot.

I had it narrowed down to a couple of people who I thought could be the guilty party, and turns out the killer ended up being one of the people I suspected all along, but in true Christie fashion, there was a twist thrown in there that I didn't quite figure out.