'The Clocks' is one of those Agatha Christie books that has so much potential. I started reading and KNEW it was going to be good, knew that Christie would have this almost impossible plot nailed and knew that I would be captivated throughout. Well this didn't happen. It was a rather excellent book right up until the end, when things came out, secrets were told and I was thoroughly disappointed. To make matters worse, Poirot doesn't appear until half way through the book, and was barely present until near the end. Considering this was a Poirot book, this was a bit of a mistake from Christie, who was obviously thoroughly sick of Poirot by now and probably would've happily got away with keeping him absent the whole way through. To be honest he didn't really lend anything to the story in particular, and it seemed he was a bit wasted here.
The plot is intriguing to say the least - a young typist named Sheila is called for personally to go to a house to do some work for a woman, but when she arrives it is to find a dead body on the floor. Added to which, the owner of the house is blind, was not present at the time, and there are 4 clocks on the mantlepiece that don't belong to her. What a fabulous, yet eerie start! It continues in this creepy, strange way, full of gossip and intrigue and then falls flat on it's face. Disappointed.
