THE ABC MURDERS
Other titles: THE ALPHABET MURDERS (in US reprint, Pocket
Books, 1966)
UK publication: 1935 (Collins)
US publication: 1935 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Poirot is once more joined by Hastings, again on extended leave from his Argentine ranch. The story begins with Poirot receiving a taunting letter promising a crime in Andover on a given day; sure enough, a murder occurs there, and more letters follow. It soon becomes clear that the criminal is working his way through the alphabet (Alice Ascher was killed in Andover, waitress Betty Barnard is murdered in Bexhill, Sir Carmichael Clark killed in Churston, and in Doncaster something goes wrong when a Mr. Earlsfield is killed). A railway timetable ("The ABC Rail Guide", as it is called) is left next to each victim. Poirot and Hastings find the method in ABC's pretended madness and the reason for the alphabetical order, and stop the killing spree in time to save the fifth victim. The prime suspect for most of the book is a mysterious Mr. Alexander Bonaparte Cust. A film of the story, "The Alphabet Murders", was made in 1966, but it is not a faithful adaptation.
AFTER THE FUNERAL
US title: FUNERALS ARE FATAL
Other titles: MURDER AT THE GALLOP (in UK reprint, Fontana,
1963)
UK publication: 1953 (Collins)
US publication: 1953 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: The family of the late Richard Abernethie, a wealthy old man, is gathered to hear his will when one of the family remarks that he must have been murdered. When this relative (Cora Lansquenet) is herself murdered, the family solicitor, Mr. Entwhistle, called in Poirot. The Abernethie family is so complicated that a tree is provided, and the mystifications of the plot are among Christie's most convoluted. Mr. Goby, an eccentric investigator who last assisted Poirot in the 1926 Mystery of the Blue Train, comes out of retirement to help him again. An awful 1963 film, "Murder at the Gallop", was based loosely on this story, with Miss Marple (played by the unfortunate Margaret Rutherford) substituted for Poirot and the action shifted to a riding school.
APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH
UK publication: 1938 (Collins)
US publication: 1938 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Poirot is a member of a party of tourists on an excursion to Petra in Trans-Jordan when one of their number is killed, and he is asked to help with the investigation. The party includes the Boynton family, a large American brood touring the Middle East and consisting of old Mrs. Boynton (fat, grotesque, and cruel), her four children, and the wife of one of them; as well as a French psychiatrist, a young Englishwoman medical student, and Lady Westholme, a redoubtable British Member of Parliament. It is Mrs. Boynton who is murdered. The atmosphere of the Holy Land sights is well conveyed. Christie adapted the novel into a play, produced in 1945; a British film version starring Lauren Bacall, Carrie Fisher, John Gielgud, and Peter Ustinov as Poirot was released in 1988.
THE BIG FOUR
UK publication: 1927 (Collins)
US publication: 1927 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: This novel rather uneasily combines Poirot and Hastings with the sort of international crime syndicate usually found in Christie's thrillers. It was rewritten from a series of short stories, and is loosely episodic in form. Hastings has arrived in London on a business trip from Argentina; Poirot has not yet retired to King's Abbott, and was about to travel abroad when a stranger bursts into his room, collapses and dies. The pair are set on the trail of the Big Four, an international crime cartel headed by an American, a French woman, a Chinese man, and an Englishman. Each of them are dealt with in separate episodes, with many uncharacteristic adventures, including the abduction of Hastings' wife in Argentina, the appearance (never to be seen again) of Poirot's brother Achille, and Poirot's own apparent death-- a mock funeral which overcomes Hastings with emotion. The Countess Vera Rossakoff also appears for the first time, and the agent Joseph Aarons makes a final appearance.
CARDS ON THE TABLE
UK publication: 1936 (Collins)
US publication: 1937 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: A psychological problem for Poirot , one of his favorite cases. A dinner party is held by a connoisseur of the bizarre, Mr. Shaitana, in his Park Lane flat, to which are invited four investigators of crime and four people who Shaitana says have committed murders and not been caught. After the two groups play two separate games of bridge, Shaitana is found murdered. The four successful murderers are equally suspected; they include a young woman domestic, a widow who may have killed her husband, a doctor who lost several patients, and a Major who may have killed a botanist on the Amazon. The detectives are Poirot, Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard, Colonel Race (known from The Man in the Brown Suit and here revealed to be a Secret Service agent), and Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, the crime novelist and gentle self-parody of Christie. One of the suspects reappears 25 years later in The Pale Horse. The story was (not too successfully) adapted as a play, with the character of Poirot removed, which opened in London in 1981.
CAT AMONG THE PIGEONS
UK publication: 1959 (Collins)
US publication: 1960 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: One of the best of the later Poirot stories. The action takes place at a girls' school in England, run by the sensible Miss Bulstrode, although it is also concerned with a revolution in Ramat, a fictional Middle Eastern country. Poirot attempts to discover who is murdering the staff of the school, and a plethora of motives is revealed. We meet two characters later to be encountered in thrillers: Colonel Pikeaway, in charge of intelligence, and Mr. Robinson, a fat and enigmatic financier.
THE CLOCKS
UK publication: 1963 (Collins)
US publication: 1964 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Poirot is called into a case by Colin Lamb, an intelligence agent of some kind whose father knew Poirot. A body has been discovered in the seaside town of Crowdean, in the house of a blind woman, and in a room full of clocks, most of which do not belong there. Lamb happens to be passing by when the body is discovered, and goes to Poirot, his old mentor [Christie said that Lamb was probably Superintendent Battle's son]. There are really two separate plots, which are linked at the end. One of the more unusual late books, with an amusing lecture on fictional detectives given by Poirot.
CURTAIN: POIROT'S LAST CASE
UK publication: 1975 (Collins)
US publication: 1975 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Christie, at 85 years old, was unable to devote the necessary concentration to a new novel; her publishers persuaded her to release Curtain, which she had written during World War II and kept back for posthumous publication, planning Poirot's final case to coincide with her own death. Hastings returns as narrator for the first time since 1937; he is visiting Poirot once more while Poirot is staying (of all places) at Styles, the scene of his first book. Hastings is probably over 50; Poirot is very old and frail, using a wig and false moustaches to keep up his vanity, and maybe about 85 years old. It is a sad and nostalgic book, in which Poirot dies about two thirds of the way through, and in which the other characters (inhabitants of Styles) are for the most part disappointed and embittered. One of Hastings' four children (Judith) is also at Styles, and it is a problem concerning her that leads Hastings himself to contemplate murder. The criminal is apparently never brought to justice, but a manuscript of Poirot's, found by Hastings after Poirot's death, reveals the truth, and the ending is very surprising. When this book was published in the US, Poirot's obituary was printed on the front page of the New York Times!
DEAD MAN'S FOLLY
UK publication: 1956 (Collins)
US publication: 1956 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: The first murder occurs at a village fete in Nassecombe in Devon, where the girl playing the "body" in a 'Murder Hunt' is found dead. The affair was organized by Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, the detective novelist, who invited Poirot because she felt something might go wrong (they had met twice before, in Cards on the Table and Mrs. McGinty's Dead). A traditional Poirot novel, enlivened by the presence of Mrs. Oliver, Christie's self-parody as usual. The murderer is not apprehended at the end, and may never be.
DEATH IN THE CLOUDS
US title: DEATH IN THE AIR
UK publication: 1935 (Collins)
US publication: 1935 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Murder is committed on a passenger airplane, during a regular flight from Paris to London. Poirot is one of the passengers, and the murderer can only be one of the 10 other passengers in the rear compartment, or one of the stewards. The murder is only realized just before landing, and Poirot investigates the crime in London and Paris, working with Inspector Japp as well as M. Fournier of the Surete. Madame Giselle (the murdered passenger) has only a minor puncture wound on her throat, and the actual cause of death is one of the puzzles. The other passengers include an aristocrat, an ex-chorus girl, two whitecollar workers with romantic interests, a doctor, a businessman, two French archaeologists, and the crime novelist Daniel Clancy, suspected by Japp.
DEATH ON THE NILE
UK publication: 1937 (Collins)
US publication: 1938 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: One of Christie's finest, set on the steamer Karnak, cruising the Nile. (The stage is set in a first chapter which outlines how all of the characters came to be in Egypt.) The beautiful and rich Linnet Ridgeway has lured handsome Simon Doyle away from her best friend Jacqueline and married him; Jacqueline retaliates by following the couple on their entire honeymoon as a silent presence. During the cruise, Linnet is killed; other passengers suspected are a grand American lady, a novelist (Mrs. Otterbourne) and her daughter, an upperclass Englishwoman and her son, two solicitors, an Italian archaeologist, and a young radical. The Secret Service agent Colonel Race is also a passenger, but unlike Poirot (who is on holiday) he is shadowing a murderer. Christie adapted the story herself into a play in 1945, as "Murder on the Nile", and a star-studded film (including David Niven, Mia Farrow, Angela Lansbury, Bette Davis, and Peter Ustinov as Poirot) was made under the original title in 1978.
DUMB WITNESS
US title: POIROT LOSES A CLIENT
Other titles: MYSTERY AT LITTLEGREEN HOUSE or MURDER AT
LITTLEGREEN HOUSE in several reprint editions
UK publication: 1937 (Collins)
US publication: 1937 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Poirot receives a long and rambling letter from Emily Arundell, an elderly spinster who lives at Littlegreen House in the village of Market Basing, Berkshire; she asks him to undertake an investigation for her but forgets to tell him what it is. Poirot and Hastings visit Market Basing to find that she has died of a heart attack, but investigate the case anyway. The 'dumb witness' of the title is a dog, a wire-haired terrier called Bob, who plays an important role in the plot and who is given some 'dialogue'. The story is another take on the village murder with a small number of suspects and a death by poison. (Hastings accepts the dog at the end, presumably returning to Argentina with him).
ELEPHANTS CAN REMEMBER
UK publication: 1972 (Collins)
US publication: 1972 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: The last Poirot novel Christie wrote---another story in which a crime is investigated in the past. A girl's parents were killed, or committed suicide, twelve years in the past; the girl is now engaged to be married, and her future mother-in-law thinks it important to know who killed whom. Poirot and the novelist Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, who is scattier than ever, dig up the family history. (The elephants of the title are those who have clear memories of 12-year-old events.) Several old Poirot characters appear, such as Superintendent Spence and Mr. Goby, still gathering information. Both Poirot and Christie are getting old, and the plot meanders, but the idea is still clever.
EVIL UNDER THE SUN
UK publication: 1941 (Collins)
US publication: 1941 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Poirot is holidaying on a resort island off the coast of Devon, and feels certain there will be murder committed, but cannot prevent it. The victim is envied and disliked by many, and the suspects are other guests at the Jolly Roger Hotel on Smuggler's Island. An American couple, the Odell Gardeners, provide comic relief. Poirot enjoys the assistance of the chief constable, Colonel Weston. A well-known film version was released in 1982, with the scene changed to the Adriatic, and with Poirot played by Peter Ustinov.
FIVE LITTLE PIGS
US title: MURDER IN RETROSPECT
UK publication: 1943 (Collins)
US publication: 1942 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Poirot is called on to investigate a crime committed some years in the past. A painter, Amyas Crale, not a particularly attractive figure, is murdered; his wife Caroline is found guilty of his murder and dies in prison. Sixteen years later, her daughter asks Poirot to clear her mother's name. The other five principal suspects are still alive, and each writes for Poirot a memoir of those events. The different interpretations of the different characters, and their own changes in the course of sixteen years, are well portrayed and make interesting reading. Christie herself made the story into a play, "Go Back for Murder", which opened briefly in 1960.
HALLOWE'EN PARTY
UK publication: 1969 (Collins)
US publication: 1969 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: At a Hallowe'en party attended by the unquenchable Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, Poirot's old friend and Christie's spoof on herself, a 13-year-old girl who has been telling everyone that she witnessed a murder is found drowned in a tub of apples. Poirot is enlisted to help, and he finds Superintendent Spence living in the neighborhood, who helps him with information about the locals. Poirot cannot prevent a second murder, but stops the criminal just before a third. The novel is a little odd, with Christie's characterizations beginning to fade and a few loose ends left untied.
HERCULE POIROT'S CHRISTMAS
US title: MURDER FOR CHRISTMAS
Other titles: A HOLIDAY FOR MURDER (in US reprint, Avon,
1947)
UK publication: 1938 (Collins)
US publication: 1939 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: This novel combines the traditional murder in the English country house-party with a locked-room (i.e. seemingly impossible) crime. A somewhat unimaginative story: the Christmas party is that of the family of a wealthy and unpleasant old man, assembled from around the world, and the old man is (naturally) murdered on Christmas eve. Poirot has been staying nearby, with Colonel Johnson of the Middleshire Police (whom he met before, in Three-Act Tragedy) and is called in. The family is rather a collection of stereotypes (the exotic foreigner, the strong and silent Colonial son, the sympathetic wife, and so on), and the locked-room clue perhaps disappointing.
HICKORY DICKORY DOCK
US title: HICKORY DICKORY DEATH
UK publication: 1955 (Collins)
US publication: 1955 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: The story has no real connection with the nursery rhyme. Poirot is introduced to the affair through Miss Lemon, making her first appearance in a Poirot novel; her sister, who runs a boarding house for students, has had an outbreak of petty theft. Poirot investigates, and the trail leads to murder. The students are typecast: Sally Finch, an American girl; Mr. Akibombo, West African; Chandra Lal and Gopal Ram, Indians; and some British students, one of whom simulates a neurosis in order to attract a young psychologist.
THE HOLLOW
Other titles: MURDER AFTER HOURS (in US reprint, Dell, 1956)
UK publication: 1946 (Collins)
US publication: 1946 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Poirot is staying at his weekend cottage near The Hollow, country home of Sir Henry and Lady Angkatell, and arrives there for lunch to discover a dying man lying by the swimming pool with a woman waving a revolver at him. The murder victim is Dr. John Christow, whose slow-thinking widow Gerda is an important character in the plot. The novel is more concerned with characterization than many Christies, and the plot is relatively uncomplicated. Christie adapted the novel into a play which was produced in 1951.
LORD EDGWARE DIES
US title: THIRTEEN AT DINNER
UK publication: 1933 (Collins)
US publication: 1933 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Hastings is again at Poirot's side (though he will return to Argentina at the end of the story) to investigate a crime in the West End of London, with action at many fashionable venues (the Savoy Hotel, a mansion in Regent's Park). The dinner party for 13 takes place at Sir Montagu Corner's mansion at Chiswick. When Lord Edgware, a most unsympathetic character, is murdered, suspicion falls on his wife, the actress Jane Wilkinson, but it is possible that Jane has been impersonated by the brilliant American actress Carlotta Adams. Inspector Japp is Poirot's rival, as usual. Oddly, Poirot interrupts his investigation to solve the case of the Ambassador's Boots, which had in fact been solved by Tommy and Tuppence (in Partners in Crime). Filmed in 1934.
MRS. McGINTY'S DEAD
Other titles: BLOOD WILL TELL (in US, Detective Book Club
edition, 1952)
UK publication: 1952 (Collins)
US publication: 1952 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: An old woman (Mrs. McGinty) has been killed, evidently for the sake of a little money, in the village of Broadhinny. Poirot, now living alone in London, thinks the crime uninteresting, but he is visited by Superintendent Spence and asked to consider the case. The woman's lodger, James Bentley, has been convicted of the crime, but Spence is unsatisfied and manages to persuade Poirot to investigate. The milieu is solidly workingclass, with characters such as Major and Mrs. Summerhayes, who run the awful boarding house where Poirot stays; Mrs. McGinty's niece, Bessie Burch, who is not sorry; and Bentley himself, a very unsympathetic character. The lady novelist Ariadne Oliver is present once more, now more than ever a parody of Christie herself. Poirot works against time to find the real murderer before Bentley is hanged. A British film, "Murder Most Foul", was based very loosely on this story, with Miss Marple substituted for Poirot; it was released in 1964 and starred Margaret Rutherford.
MURDER IN MESOPOTAMIA
UK publication: 1936 (Collins)
US publication: 1936 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Set on an archaeological dig in Iraq, the murder victim being the wife of the archaeologist, an American named Eric Leidner. Poirot is passing through the site of the dig on his way to Baghdad from Syria. The narrator is nurse Amy Leatheran, caretaker to the murdered woman, Louise Leidner. The assistant archaeologist, David Emmott, is modeled on Christie's husband Max Mallowan. The plot is quite extravagant (even far-fetched) but provides a funny and reasonably accurate picture of life on an expedition.
THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD
UK publication: 1926 (Collins)
US publication: 1926 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: One of the most ingenious (or infuriating, depending on your point of view) of Christie's novels. Narrated by a Doctor Sheppard, who takes the place of Hastings (now living in Argentina with his wife) in assisting Poirot. A wealthy widow in the village of King's Abbott, Mrs. Ferrars, is found dead, and Dr. Sheppard suspects suicide until Roger Ackroyd, a widower who was expected to marry her, is also killed. Poirot is Sheppard's new neighbor, and is relieved to escape the boredom of the vegetable marrows he has been growing by investigating the case. Most of the suspects were Ackroyd's house guests, including Ackroyd's niece, Flora; Major Blunt, a big-game hunter romantically interested in Flora; Geoffrey Raymond, Ackroyd's secretary; Ursula Bourne, a parlormaid; and Ralph Paton, an adopted son with gambling debts. Poirot is also assisted by Sheppard's sister Caroline, a middle-aged village spinster who anticipates Miss Marple's character. Both a play (1928) and a film (1931) were made of the story, both called "Alibi".
THE MURDER ON THE LINKS
UK publication: 1923 (John Lane, The Bodley Head)
US publication: 1923 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Poirot and Hastings are now rooming together in London (Hastings is Private Secretary to an MP) and are holidaying together at a resort town in the north of France, when an eminent local businessman is kidnapped and presumed murdered, masked men having broken into his house and tied up his wife. There are discrepancies in his wife's story, and the French police investigate, with young detective Giraud of the Surete scorning Poirot's advice (to his own detriment, of course). Hastings becomes infatuated with a young auburn-haired girl (who is suspected for a time) and it seems likely that they will marry at the end of the novel. One of Poirot's friends, the agent Joseph Aarons, will reappear in The Big Four.
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
US title: MURDER IN THE CALAIS COACH
UK publication: 1934 (Collins)
US publication: 1934 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Murder is committed in one of the sleeping compartments on the Istanbul-Calais coach of the famous Orient Express train; almost the entire action takes place in that coach and in the restaurant car following. Poirot is returning on the train from Syria (where he has just solved a crime for the French government), and when the train is forced to halt in Yugoslavia by a snowstorm just after the murder, Poirot is prevailed upon by the railway director, M. Bouc, to investigate. The murder victim is an American businessman named Ratchett. The suspects are an international collection of travellers: Mrs. Hubbard, a loquacious American; the Princess Dragomiroff, an exotic Russian travelling with her maid; the Count and Countess Andrenyi, Hungarian diplomat and wife; Mary Debenham, an English governess; the British Colonel Arbuthnot, returning from India; Greta Ohlsson, a Swedish missionary, and a few others---many of whom are not what they seem. Poirot's final solution is among the most audacious of Christie's plots (in fact, he puts forward two theories and allows M. Bouc to choose between them). A well-known film was made of the story in 1974, at the time the most profitable British film ever made.
THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES
UK publication: 1920 (John Lane, The Bodley Head)
US publication: 1920 (John Lane)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Christie's first novel, introducing Poirot and Hastings. The action takes place during World War I at Styles Court, a country house in Essex, whose owner (John Cavendish) has invited young Capt. Hastings, his old friend, to stay and recuperate from his war injuries. Cavendish's wealthy stepmother, Mrs. Inglethorp, is found murdered by strychnine poisoning, and suspicion falls on all the other inhabitants of the house-- Mrs. Inglethorp's fortune-hunting new husband Alfred, Cavendish's wife Mary and brother Lawrence, Mrs. Inglethorp's companion Evelyn Howard, and a local girl (Cynthia) with access to poisons at the hospital-- as well as Dr. Bauerstein, an expert on poisons staying in the village. Hastings is delighted to discover Poirot staying in the same village. They had met before the war, when Hastings worked for Lloyds of London in Belgium; Poirot is now a war refugee, despite his fame in Belgium, and Hastings persuades Cavendish to let Poirot take the case. Inspector Japp also appears near the end. The story is a traditional puzzle-solver, with plans of the house and illustrations of clues. Christie drew on her knowledge of poisons (gained in her hospital work) to present a plausible crime, which was copied by a real-life criminal years later.
THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE TRAIN
UK publication: 1928 (Collins)
US publication: 1928 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: The first Poirot novel to be told in the third person, with no Watson-like narrator. An American millionaire's daughter, Miss Van Aldin, is found strangled in her compartment on the Blue Train (running from Paris to Nice), with a fabulous ruby stolen. Poirot is traveling to the French Riviera with his English valet, George, on the same train, and is drawn into the case. He is assisted by one of Christie's adventurous young ladies, Katherine Grey. The plot is an expansion of a short story ("The Plymouth Express") which appeared in the collection The Under Dog in 1951 in the USA, but not until 1974 in the UK (in the volume Poirot's Early Cases). Christie apparently hated the book, but perhaps undeservedly.
ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE
US title: THE PATRIOTIC MURDERS
Other titles: AN OVERDOSE OF DEATH (in US reprint edition,
Dell, 1953)
UK publication: 1940 (Collins)
US publication: 1941 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Christie's most successful example of the murder mystery inspired by a nursery rhyme. Each chapter of the novel corresponds roughly to a line of the verse. The first victim is a Harley Street dentist; Poirot suspects he is not a suicide, since Poirot himself was a patient of his only an hour previously, and the dentist had seemed in good spirits. Chief Inspector Japp does his share of investigating the mystery, which proves to have ramifications involving international conspiracy. The atmosphere of Europe on the brink of war is well described. The novel contains the only occasion on which Poirot is known to have attended a church service, and also reminds us that he still dreams of Countess Vera Rossakoff, the aristocratic thief he had met in The Big Four.
PERIL AT END HOUSE
UK publication: 1932 (Collins)
US publication: 1932 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Set in the resort town of St. Loo on the south coast of England (modeled after Torquay). Poirot and Hastings (who is again visiting England from his home in Argentina) are staying at a hotel, and meet a young woman, Nick Buckley, who lives above the town at End House and has recently had several narrow escapes. Poirot thinks someone is trying to kill her, and she too is convinced after her cousin is killed at End House, perhaps mistaken for her. Most of the characters are friends of Nick's, including the Jewish art dealer Jim Lazarus and a mysterious Australian couple. The story was produced as a play in London in 1940.
SAD CYPRESS
UK publication: 1940 (Collins)
US publication: 1940 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: The prologue introduces young Elinor Carlisle, accused of murdering her wealthy Aunt Laura and currently standing trial. The aunt had been helpless after a stroke, and was known to wish herself dead; her doctor, Peter Lord, brings in Poirot to prove Elinor innocent. The beginning is melodramatic and clumsy, but the characterisations are some of Christie's most realistic and the evocation of old age, illness and suffering, and its effects on Aunt Laura's family, are well drawn.
TAKEN AT THE FLOOD
US title: THERE IS A TIDE ...
UK publication: 1948 (Collins)
US publication: 1948 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Set in postwar England, where the Cloade family is beset by troubles including accidental death, murder and suicide, and where the overall mood is one of dissatisfaction and ill will. The family wealth seems about to pass into the hands of a stranger, and questions of identity arise in the post-war confusion. Poirot solves the mystery with the aid of a new detective, Superintendent Spence, who will appear in three later novels.
THIRD GIRL
UK publication: 1966 (Collins)
US publication: 1967 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: Poirot confronts 'modern' youth as a very old man in this novel, in which (to stave off boredom) he agrees to see a young woman who 'might have' committed a murder. The girl turns out to be Norma Restarick, the third of three who share a flat, and is evidently something of a hippie. With the aid of the novelist Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, and the information gatherer Mr. Goby, Poirot arrives at a solution, although the plotting is not the strongest point of this novel and it is unclear how he makes several conclusions. Some reviewers find it a failure, but the reader may enjoy the 'swinging sixties' as presented by Christie, herself over 75.
THREE-ACT TRAGEDY
US title: MURDER IN THREE ACTS
UK publication: 1935 (Collins)
US publication: 1934 (Dodd, Mead)
Detective: Hercule Poirot
Genre: Novel
Plot summary and comments: A Poirot crime novel, divided into three sections called "First Act: Suspicion", "Second Act: Certainty", and "Third Act: Discovery". Sir Charles Cartwright, a famous actor living in retirement on the Cornwall coast, gives a dinner party at which one of the guests dies. He plays a leading role in the following events, as do the "callow but engaging" Miss Hermione Lytton Gore, Cynthia Dacres (owner of a clothing company), and Mr. Satterthwaite, making one of two appearances outside a Harley Quin story. Other guests are Sir Bartholomew Strange (a well-known doctor), Angela Sutcliffe, actress; Cynthia's husband Freddy; Oliver Manders, a handsome young man; Miss Wills, a playwright under a male pseudonym; and of course Poirot.