The Last Séance: Tales of the Supernatural

This collection clarified something important about my reading preferences in short fiction. These stories are structured around ideas, puzzles, or twists, but they are delivered in a highly compressed, report-like way. They often feel closer to synopses or case summaries than to fully inhabited narratives.

What I missed was:

sustained presence inside a character,

sensory or social detail that accumulates over time,

and a sense of lived experience between plot points.

Rather than unfolding moment by moment, many of the stories jump from setup to explanation to resolution. Characters function primarily as voices or roles, not as people whose inner lives or physical realities shape the story. Even when the concepts are interesting, they are show more presented around an idea rather than through a human experience.

This works well for puzzles and adaptations—especially in audio or on screen, where performance supplies texture—but on the page, the prose remains abstract. As a reader, I found myself reconstructing the missing interiority instead of receiving it.

Ultimately, this isn’t a failure of craft so much as a mismatch of form and preference. I prefer short stories that feel complete despite their brevity—stories that compress experience, not just events. These felt efficient and clever, but not fully lived in, which kept them from resonating. show less

''As we entered the grove of trees a curious oppression came over me. I think it was the silence. No birds seemed to nest in these trees. There was a feeling about it of desolation and horror.''

Crisp autumn nights, cold evening when winter shows its teeth, summer dusks with their long shadows and the feeling of a strange freedom. Old estates, moors, pagan gods, spirits and human vices. Premonitions, evil intentions. The Queen of Crime creates 20 astonishing stories where the supernatural and the mortal world form a macabre dance. In atmospheric writing and attention to the detail, Agatha Christie demonstrates why she is the everlasting, insurmountable representative of the Mystery genre. Everyone else is a caricature.

These are my show more personal favourite moments in the collection.

The Last Séance: A horrifying story of a séance going horribly wring. Set in Paris and absolutely breathtaking.

In A Glass Darkly: A mirror of prophetic visions and a passionate love affair in a mysterious story of premonitions with striking twists.

S.O.S: It is a stormy night of restless spirits when Mortimer finds himself stranded close to a small cottage in Wiltshire and the family that gives him shelter is full of surprises. Also, Agatha, why are you so perfect?

The Fourth Man: Three men travel in a train on a winter's night and decide to discuss the issue of multiple personalities. It is a fourth man, sitting in a corner, who sets things straight…

‘’There are certain places imbued and saturated with good or evil influences which can make their power felt.’’

The Last House of Astarte: A story, set in Dartmoor, of old religions, passions and strange murders.

The Gypsy: A sad story of premonitions and the ruthless Fate, set in the moors.

The Lamp: A lonely boy is trapped in time, waiting for his father...

The Dream: Hercule Poirot is called to investigate the strange suicide of a wealthy gentleman. Can a dream cause you to kill yourself?

Wireless: An elderly lady hears a message from her long-deceased husband through the newly-installed wireless.

The Strange Case of Sir Arthur Carmichael: A story of dark witchcraft and haunting cats. Utterly strange and marvelous!

The Blue Geranium: ‘’I have seen the future. Be warned before it is too late. Beware of the Full Moon. The Blue Primrose means Warning; the Blue Hollyhock means Danger; the Blue Geranium means Death…’’
Also, Miss Marple…

The Flock of Geryon: Hercule Poirot aids an heiress in bringing down a dangerous religious sect.

‘’The doll lay in the big velvet-covered chair. There was not much light in the room; the London skies were dark. In the gentle, greyish- green gloom, the sage-green coverings and the curtains and the rugs all blended with each other. The doll blended, too. She lay long and limp and sprawled in her green-velvet clothes and her velvet cap and the painted mask of her face.’’

The Dressmaker’s Doll: Stories with dolls are always scary and this is one might be the scariest and most unique of them all…

The Hound of Death: A nun who has prophetic visions, a black hound and a strange doctor. Perfection…

Not much to say really. This collection will be the finest Halloween (reading) company.

‘’It’s a wild night, that’s all.’’

Many thanks to William Morrow Paperbacks and Edelweiss for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

Dame Agatha Christie has been dubbed the Queen of Crime. Rarely has an appellative been better chosen. In a long and prolific career she published 66 mystery novels and 14 short story collections, creating in the process two of the most idiosyncratic sleuths in English literature – the misleadingly understated Miss Marple and the eccentric and foppish Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. She was also a multi-record-breaker – being, allegedly, the world’s best selling writer as well as the author of the longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap. But, perhaps what is even more notable is that in her case quantity never led to the sacrifice of quality. Her work is consistently well-crafted and satisfying.

A lesser-known show more fact about Christie is her interest in the paranormal. This inspired several short stories, especially in the early part of her career. Most of her pieces of speculative fiction were published in The Hounds of Death and Other Stories, first published in the UK in 1933. These short stories (except for Witness for the Prosecution) together with other works dealing with the otherworldly, have now been issued as part of the Collins Chillers series, under the title The Last Séance: Tales of the Supernatural. This is the most comprehensive collection to date of Agatha Christie’s supernatural oeuvre. They show an aspect of the Dame’s writings which is worth exploring and unexpectedly reveal her to be a worthy figure at the fringe (if not exactly the mainstream) of the English Gothic and horror tradition.

Perhaps my last statement deserves some clarification. In my view, the quintessential English form of supernatural fiction is the ghost story. Interestingly, though, only one of the stories (The Lamp) comes close to the typical haunted house tale. Christie seems more concerned with what might be termed “parapsychological” phenomena – mysteries which lie at the fluid boundaries between the scientific, the psychological and the (as yet?) unexplained. Premonitions, prophetic dreams, split personalities, strange coincidences … these are more likely to appear as subjects in Christie stories than your usual unrequited ghost. Some stories also nod towards Eastern/Egyptian Gothic – most notably The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb (featuring Poirot sweating it out at an archeological dig in Egypt), The Idol House of Astarte (which sees Christie venturing in almost folk horror territory) and The Strange Case of Sir Arthur Carmichael (a tale of dark Oriental witchcraft).

It’s worth pointing out that in several of the stories, the supernatural element is merely a front for very human, criminal behaviour. Of course, this fits into another long-standing strand of Gothic fiction – the so-called “rational Gothic” which runs from Ann Radcliffe to Scooby-Doo via The Hound of the Baskervilles. I must admit I found these tales of “smoke and mirrors” somewhat disappointing as horror fiction, albeit perfectly satisfying from a purely narrative perspective.

What is notable in Christie’s brand of supernatural fiction is that she eschews the atmospheric scene-setting which are the stock-in-trade of the genre and she achieves most of her effect through tight plotting, unexpected twists and judicious control of the narrative. These are, of course, skills which served Christie well in her long career as crime writer. However, to me, the more unsettling stories in this collection are those which are clear examples of weird fiction. The opening (title) piece – The Last Séance – is a case in point, its gory denouement hitting the reader like a punch in the gut. Other notably dark stories include the apocalyptic, “cosmic horror” tale The Hound of Death and, perhaps, the most nightmarish of all, The Dressmaker’s Doll. Who knows – perhaps if Christie’s career had panned out otherwise, she would now be known as the Queen of Horror.

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-last-seance-tales-of-supernatural... show less

Agatha Christie is, for good reason, known as the Queen of Crime. However, it is less well known that she was interested in the paranormal. The Last Seance gathers together several of her paranormal tales guaranteed to give shivers to any reader. Like in any collection, I liked some stories better than others. One of my favourites is the titular tale in which a seance goes horribly wrong. But perhaps my favourite tale is The Dressmaker’s Doll. I mean, dolls are creepy on their own but Christie takes it to a whole ‘nother level of nightmare. Overall, a great collection, perfect for Halloween but I wouldn’t recommend reading it alone especially in the dark.

Thanks to Edelweiss+ and the publishers for the opportunity to read this book show more in exchange for an honest review show less

I've always enjoyed Agatha Christie's novels, but this collection of short stories blew me away. Here you'll find a collection of characters ranging from the sinister to the innocent, ghosts and spirits and mediums fraudulent and real, and a bit of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple for good measure. Some of these tales have a tone darker than anything you'd expect from Christie, and all have the carefully-crafted plots and surprise endings that characterize her work. More than five stars, I'd rate this collection as a must read for mystery fans and writers.

The publishing company William Morrow Paperbacks decided that they could squeeze another dollar out of Agatha Christie by repackaging some of “her spookiest and most sinister stories” into an anthology. The problem is that there weren’t really enough quality short stories that fit that bill, so the publisher made up the difference with some subpar supernatural short stories (including the eponymous short story) and short stories that really aren’t that sinister — or suspenseful.

Stick with “In a Glass Darkly,” “The Fourth Man,” “The Idol of Astarte,” the very ambiguous “Philomel Cottage,” “The Lamp,” “The Dream,” “Wireless,” “The Strange Case of Sir Arthur Carmichael,” “The Blue Geranium” show more and “The Dressmaker’s Doll.” Most of the rest are just not worth your time. show less

A highly readable and enjoyable collection of Agatha Christie's supernaturally-tinged stories, some of them among her earliest publications in the 1920s. It includes several stories involving Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. They are still very much stories of their time--a few characters are blatantly racist--but the mysteries themselves remain solid.