A few months before winter is officially over, a nice winter themed book is in order.

Agatha Christie has been one of my favorite authors and I’m sure the favorite author of most of you. This truly legendary author has left us with a very long legacy of her criminal themed books with stimulating storylines and unpredictable endings. It’s exactly what every reader is looking for a true crime book, an ending that cannot be predicted by anyone with a twist that is bound to leave you speechless and wondering how you could not have seen it.

That kind of familiar unpredictability is exactly what set Agatha Christie as a precious author of this world and the main reason why her books (and short stories) have turned into fantastic plays and movies.

Recently, I was given as a Christmas present the Midwinter Murder book. It’s a small, but very stimulating book of 251 pages that consists 12 short true crime stories written by Agatha Christie that were published in papers at that time (the first short story is dated in 1923).

The book cover is hard with a vivid navy blue color and snowflakes surrounded by snow to give off the winter-y vibe that is needed. This book can easily be read by the fireplace during wintertime.

Each story unwrapped has as the lead character wither Monsieur Poirot or Miss Marple, who are the main characters in most of her books and detective stories. Ms Christie has successfully created two opposite gendered main leads that have such an impressive brain activity that almost puts the rest of us humans in shame.

The writing of each short story is very simple, with a bit of French essence here and there – whenever a Poirot story is been told, of course – to make you want to learn French as to be able to read the book without looking at the translation at the bottom. However, those two languages are so beautifully blend together that you don’t notice the difference between them when it comes to the meaning of a full sentence. No unnecessary big words, not tiring detailed sceneries, but simple words that work together to create a very honest image of the scene you are currently reading. That is something not many writers can do.

What I particularly liked about it, is the fact that although each story is fairly small on every story’s beginning the main characters were very easily spotted and mentioned with every piece of detail you’d need. Not so much as the outside, as much as the inside and certain traits that are, of course, crucial to the storyline.

I am not at liberty to choose one particular story that stuck with me and that’s because there are a few that really challenged me. Just when I was ready to pinpoint the killer, Agatha made sure that the leads knew a better way to confuse me. It was truly a very interesting book that I will read again.

Thanks for reading!

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