Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie

 

Title:  Taken at the Flood

Author:  Agatha Christie

Narrated by:  Hugh Fraser

Publisher: HarperAudio

Length: Approximately 6 hours and 0 minutes

Source: Checked out with Libby through the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

What time period do you like to read about?  I enjoy that Agatha Christie’s mysteries span through the decades and change with time.  I always think of Hercule Poirot in the 1930s, but he is in mysteries from the 1920s to the 1970s.  For a detective that was retired in the 1920s, he sure kept solving mysteries for a long time.

I read Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie this past month for #ReadChristie2024.  #ReadChristie2024 has a theme this year of through the decades.  January – March are books written by Agatha Christie in the 1920’s, April through June are books written by Agatha Christie in the 1930’s, and July through September are books written by Agatha Christie in the 1940s and 1950s.  Taken at the Flood was published in 1948 and was my July selection.

Gordan Cloade is a wealthy man who cares for his many family members and supports them financially.  In 1944, he meets a widow, Rosaleen, on a ship to New York and marries her.  He had only been in London for a few days with his new wife when a bomb hits their residence.  The only survivors are Rosaleen and her brother David.   Rosaleen is now the heiress to the Cloade fortune with nothing going to any of the other family members.  When a mysterious man arrives in town stating that he knows Rosaleen’s first husband is alive, the Cloades are a flutter.  When the mysterious man ends up dead, who among the many suspects is the killer?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       Taken at the Flood was an interesting look at life right after WWII in a small town in England, and how people are adjusting to life after the war. 

·       Lynn is a Wren who has experienced the world while she was in service.  She came back, but no longer loves the man who had to stay home and run the farm, Rowley.

·       Hugh Fraser is a great narrator of Agatha Christie’s books.

·       I really liked that unlike many of Christie’s books, you really get a sense of time in this novel.  You know this book is set right after WWII.

·       I didn’t like the ending of this one, but I don’t want to ruin it for others.  I’ll just say both the mystery and the romance were disappointing to me.

Overall, Taken at the Flood is a great look at Post WWII England, but I thought the ending was disappointing.