Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Plotting is Agatha Christie's forte of course but she outdoes herself with this 1934 Hercule Poirot mystery. It begins with the death of the beloved rector of the parish, a man without an enemy in the world. Who would want to kill him? Maybe it was natural causes - no poison was found in the martini he had just sipped when he collapsed at a party given by a recently retired actor, Sir Charles Cartwright. When another man dies in a similar manner (only this time it's a glass of port) a post-mortem shows nicotine poisoning. This is too much of a cooincidence and the people who were at both parties come under suspicion of murder.
A trio of Sir Charles, the young and beautiful Miss Lytton Gore, and the ascerbic old Mr Satterthwaite decides to investigate the crimes. Complicating things is that Miss Lytton Gore is in love with Sir Charles but he is unaware of it. He is in love with her but she can't see that either. Mr Satterthwaite sees it all and watches bemused. They consult with Hercule Poirot as the plot thickens. The key to solving these murders is the theater, as the name of the book implies and the fact that it is divided into three acts.
This book is of particular interest to me because one of the characters, a playwright named Muriel Wills, who writes under the pseudonym Anthony Astor, is believed to be based on Josephine Tey, whom Agatha Christie didn't particularly like. Tey's real name was Elizabeth Mackintosh and she wrote for the stage under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot. For her mysteries she used the pseudonym by which we know her today, Josephine Tey.
2011 No 157
The Big Four by Agatha Christie
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The Big Four is not Agatha Christie at her best. Too much is crammed into the book: murders, international intrigue, and a criminal mastermind.
Here's what Amazon has to say:
Framed in the doorway of Hercule Poirot’s bedroom stands an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust. The man stares for a moment, then he sways and falls.
Who is he? Is he suffering from shock or just exhaustion? Above all, what is the significance of the figure 4, scribbled over and over again on a sheet of paper? Poirot finds himself plunged into a world of international intrigue, risking his life—and that of his “twin brother”—to uncover the truth.
2011 No 158
Peril at End House by Agatha Christie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Published in 1932, Peril at End House is one of the gems of the Agatha Christie series starring Hercule Poirot. It takes place on "the Cornish Riviera" and involves the fate of End House, a lovely old edifice on the cliff overlooking the sea.
The young owner who has recently inherited End House is accident prone. Or is she? Her several brushes with death make Poirot suspicious and when he notices a bullet hole in her hat he decides he needs to investigate. Who would want the young woman dead and why? A well-plotted mystery, as is usual with Agatha Christie.
2011 No 159
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This classic Agatha Christie mystery is perhaps her best book. The plot is brilliant and yet it is possible to figure out the story if the reader pays extremely close attention to every detail. The setting of the Calais coach of the Orient Express in the early 1930s is particularly vivid and various of the characters have unusual and interesting histories.
I read this book many years ago and have seen the excellent movie made in 1974 with Albert Finney as a surprisingly good Poirot and also starring everybody. No, I mean it: Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael York, and Richard Widmark.
It was particularly interesting to re-read the book and pick up all those tiny details you cannot transport from a book to a movie, but also to remember all those details in the movie that bring the book to life.
2011 No 160
Thirteen At Dinner by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Thirteen at Dinner is another classic Agatha Christie and one of my favorites. The plot, as usual, is well crafted, and the characters are particularly interesting.
In this story Poirot meets some theater people at dinner in his hotel and they invite him to a party. One of the group asks him to help her by talking to her husband and convincing him to give her a divorce. When Poirot discovers the man has already told his wife she can have her divorce he becomes very supicious. When the man is murdered and witnesses say they saw his wife enter his study at about the time of his death it looks like an open and shut case.
But the very simplicity of the case makes Inspector Japp nervouse and when he visits Poirot to talk about the case and they discover a newspaper item describing a dinner party at which the wife was present things become complicated.
2011 No 161
The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Agatha Christie was in her prime in the 1930s and The ABC Murders is another of her Top Ten. The plot is clever, as most of her plots are: notes arrive at Poirot's apartment describing the coming murders and a railway guide is left at each crime scene to assure Poirot and Inspector Japp that they are all done by the same man. (Or woman.)
From Amazon: A is for Mrs. Ascher in Andover, B is for Betty Barnard in Bexhill, C is for Sir Carmichael Clarke in Churston. With each murder, the killer is getting more confident—but leaving a trail of deliberate clues to taunt the proud Hercule Poirot might just prove to be the first, and fatal, mistake.
There is a particularly good discussion of the novel on Wikipedia.
2011 No 162
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Death on the Nile, as the title suggests, is another Agatha Christie mystery that takes to the road (or the boat) to gather an interesting group of people with many hidden interconnections and some not so hidden. A young man who was engaged to a charming but penniless young woman has thrown her over for her wealthy best friend, and the jilted woman has followed the pair on their honeymoon to Egypt. They happen to find on the same excursion the wealthy bride's British and American lawyers and a handful of other people who might have reason to hate her. As it happens, Poirot is on the same excursion.
When the bride turns up dead the murderer shouldn't be hard to find as most of the likely suspects have iron-clad alabis (always a suspicious thing in Agatha Christie.) Poirot has figured out the connections between the characters and determined where each of them was when the murder occurred, the reader following along with the help of a map of the staterooms on the boat. A second murder, however, changes everything.
2011 No 163
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