This is my first Agatha Christie read. When I was in Junior High they took us to the High School to watch the play Ten Little Indians. I absolutely loved it and man, I hated everything school related so that’s saying something. It was the first time I realized I was a mystery person. I’ve seen a few of the movies they made of her books and to be honest besides Ten Little Indians I found them rather lackluster. Her main character detective, Hercule Poirot is no Maigret. Other than being a little dandy, (do people still say that? Fancy pants? Is that better?) he really doesn’t have much of a personality. I always considered her very Murder She Wrote which honestly she is probably what they based that show off of. But all that aside, it’s October and that means Halloween so let’s go to the Hallowe’en Party.
There is a two-page list of the characters at the beginning. I’ve heard some complaints about this type of introduction. But the way I see it is as less of an introduction and more of a reference guide. It’s really very handy to be reading and when a character is mentioned, you can just flip back to the beginning and be like, oh yeah, that guy.
So, Jessica Fletcher….err I mean Ariadne (huh?) Oliver, bestselling murder mystery writer and dear friend to Hercule Poirot is in a little English village visiting her booze cruise friend and daughter. They are helping to set up the Hallowe’en party at richy bitchy Mrs. Drake’s house.
While everyone is setting up, thirteen-year-old pathological liar Joyce tells everyone she witnessed a murder to try and impress famous writer lady. No one believes her but slam dunk she’s found at the end of the party dead, floating in the apple bobbing tub. Little child murder mystery. Keepin’ it classy, Christie.
Murder is afoot so Adriandrefe calls in Hercule Poirot. He slicks his moustache and hops on the first train to sticksville.
Here we have him going through the cast of characters asking the questions. It’s all very…basic. I mean, nothing wrong with that. It’s classic murder mystery to the point of pre-parody. You get to try and solve it along the way as little clever hints are left lying about. She really was a master at that. It was one of those things where you could go back a second time and see all the hints as they unfold.
I guessed the killer correctly but for the wrong reason so I’m not counting it.
I was hoping for way more Halloween but it’s only the party at the beginning. There are some nice fall country settings though. Poirot’s only personality seemed to be his fanciness and his unwillingness to give any excuses to “bad” people which sounded less like a character trait and more like the author venting. Like damn, so much psychology slamming going on here. Christie was obviously a true believer in that everyone is dealt the same hand.
This was just ok. I know it was one of her later books and maybe she lost a lot of steam by then? It does come off as a cranky old person, out of touch with the world going on without them but still trying to play ball. Maybe I’ll have to start at the beginning to get a truer sense of how great she was as a writer.
Pocket Books 1970
Review by: Nick Anderson
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