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The sort version is that this is basically a Sherlock Holmes story, except all the characters are thoroughly unlikeable, especially the main/narrator. Hastings is an arrogant idiot, Hercule is a plot device, and all the rest are spoiled gross rich fops who you kind of hope all get hanged wether they committed the crime or not.

The story works fine as long as you accept that no one in the story is behaving like a real person and you don’t think about any of it too hard. The character who is supposed to be solving the crime spends the whole time supplying red herrings for the reader, which is so heavy handed it knocks you right out of the story and assume everything he is saying is a literary device.

Really not sure why these books get so much acclaim, they are fine for a casual read but are by no means brilliant storytelling. It’s possible that they just haven’t aged well (the anti-Semitic, racist, and classist undertones certainly haven’t).