Agatha Christie Re-Read Project #6: Books 17-23

I haven't posted about my Agatha re-read project since last August, but that doesn't mean I have abandoned it! I did get very busy later last year and was also distracted by a lot of great new books, but I have been making my way through some Christie revisits, just not writing them up. Having just finished my Evil Under the Sun re-read a couple of days ago, I was prompted to do a catch up post. So here are the seven Christies I have re-read between late August and now - briefer notes than previously, but at least something! I also have been lazy and haven't bothered adding cover art, sorry :-)

I haven't been attempting to keep to order in any way, just picking off the ones I felt like, but I have now exited the 1920s with the Poirot books, which is good news as (with the exception always of the amazing Roger Ackroyd), I feel the Poirot work really hits its straps in from the 1930s onwards.

1. The Big Four (Poirot, 1927)

This is one of Christie's spy-thriller efforts, premised around Poirot (and his duffer sidekick, Hastings) chasing down an international conspiracy of crime and espionage led by four mysterious Big Bad kingpins - a Chinese mastermind, a French woman scientist, an American billionaire, and an English master of disguise. Shenanigans ensue, fake deaths are faked, showdowns are held, good triumphs (sorry for the spoiler, but ...)

I remember thinking this one of the sillier of the Poirot books when I read it for the first time in the 80s, and nothing in this re-read has disrupted that view. I have always thought Christie's weak suit is the espionage / grand conspiracy stories - Ian Fleming she ain't - and this one bore out my impression amply. It's also full to bursting with her less pleasant stereotyping and racism, and for that reason alone, less enjoyable. 

4/10 for me, of which 2 are for Poirot himself and 2 are for the description of Number Four's ingenious disguises which I did quite like.

2. Murder in the Mews (Poirot novellas, 1937)

This collection of four long-short stories (novelette / novella length rather than true shorts) is pretty good, although it definitely has stronger and weaker stories in it. 

Murder in the Mews, the first and titular story, is effective but a little colourless (but does introduce a theme Christie later reused to good effect). It's drenched in classism, but is otherwise relatively inoffensive. 

The Incredible Theft, story 2, is well-paced and engaging, but easily guessable (I worked it out fairly quickly when I first read this volume many years ago, and on re-read, it was even more glaringly obvious). Still,  I enjoyed it, and would consider it a solid mid-band for the shorter works canon.

Dead Man's Mirror bothered my brain because I was mixing it up in my head with the almost-identical Christie short story, The Second Gong, which is earlier (1932) and clearly was the complete template for this longer effort. Honestly, The Second Gong is a better story - more vivid, tighter, with a better reveal, and a much better killer (she did change the solution for her redo!) I think this one is the weakest of the four stories in this book.

Triangle at Rhodes, the final novelette in this volume, is a Christie banger, and justly remembered as one of her best shorter pieces ever. Almost anything I could say about it would be a spoiler, but I will say there were echoes of a lot of Christie's favourite themes (love triangles that aren't quite what they seem to be, beautiful and fully realised setting, Poirot being underestimated due to the arrogance and xenophobia of the English, etc). I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading it and still rate it highly.

Overall, 7/10 for me, given that Triangle is a banger but the other three each had sizeable weak spots.

3. At Bertram's Hotel (Miss Marple, 1965)

Now this one was as good as I remembered it! The descriptions of Bertram's, a place that is also definitively a character in its own right, are next-level good - the food, the old-world comfort, the ambience, all of it (if it was real, it would be bucket list for me to go to, for sure). The central mystery is good - not her trickiest ever, but worthy - and the characters are vividly drawn, probably so effectively because these are literally the circles Christie moved in and understood.

That said, one of the things this book does beautifully is to challenge the idea that time can stand still, and play with the ways that nostalgia can be toxic and a shield for malfeasance. Christie's ability to slowly reveal the worm at the heart of the apple is nowhere on better display than here, and Jane Marple is in full-throated form, in a context that makes complete sense for her and her particular abilities. 

Like it very much it, and it remains on my comfort re-read roster! 8/10 for me.

4. Five Little Pigs (Poirot, 1942)

This, to me, is one of Christie's best books. I've re-read it several times and have never wavered from that view, and didn't this time either.

The set up is at once simple and intriguing - a young woman visits Poirot and asks him to investigate the case of her mother, Caroline Crale, who was convicted of poisoning her father, the painter Amyas Crale, 16 years ago. On her deathbed she wrote her daughter a letter, claiming she was innocent.

Everyone else involved - apart from Caroline's sister - is convinced of Caroline Crale's guilt, so it seems a hopeless case. And if Caroline Crale did not kill her husband, who did?

The witnesses (and suspects) in the case, assuming Caroline is innocent, are the other five people who were present at the house when Amyas is poisoned - Caroline's teenage sister Angela; old family friends Phillip and Meredith Blake; governess Cecelia Williams; and Elsa Greer (now Lady Dittisham), who at the time of the murder was Amyas's 20-year-old mistress. If Caroline is innocent, one of them did it. Who, how, but much more importantly, why, is what Poirot spends this book figuring out.

There is so much to love about this book. Told through the distortion lens of five people's memories, it is a powerful study in projection, grief, and motivations, as well as being a crackingly good mystery. Poirot's abilities are utilised perfectly here - his skill at sifting through conflicting accounts (including conflicting emotional reads, not just factual ones) is incalculable, and he also gets to display his not-always-prominent empathy, which is an important part of his character often overshadowed by his egotism. It's often said that Amyas (who shares initials, perhaps not coincidentally, with Christie's cheating first husband Archie) is one of Christie's most detestable victims, and I think this triplefold now reading it as the parent of a 20-year-old daughter. He was the ultimate pig, and harmed everyone around him.

The solution to the mystery is pitch-perfect, the denouement stunning, and the ending completely satisfying. Loved it again on this read through. 9/10.

5. Hercule Poirot's Christmas (Poirot, 1938)

A lot of Christie fans don't like this book, but I enjoyed it when I first read it in the early 90s, and I enjoyed it on re-read too. It probably helped that I read it just before Christmas, so it suited my festive themed entertainment consumption perfectly. I liked the mystery (although agree with those who say that the red herrings were quite weak in this one) and I loved Poirot in it - he was perfectly himself, and all his actions and reactions made sense. I especially enjoyed the "English country house family drama at Christmas" schtick (I'm a sucker for that setting anyway). I remember that I did guess the murderer on first reading, so it wouldn't count as one of her more baffling plots, but if you're in the right mood it will hit the spot just nicely.

Excellent Christmas fun from the Dame, with only very mild ick from some of the descriptions of Pilar (the Spanish granddaughter). 8/10.

6. Evil Under the Sun (Poirot, 1941)

This was one of my favourite Poirots when I first read them (mid-80s - early 90s), and I am very pleased to find it still excellent on this re-read. The plot is clever, and clearly builds on an idea Christie formulated in one of her stories in the 1932 Miss Marple short story collection. The pacing is perfect, the characters vivid (stereotypes for the most part, but that's on brand for Christie and indeed detective fiction in general), the setting for the book is so wonderfully drawn as to make the place another character, and the twists are not all obvious but are all fair. 

It has very little racial stereotyping, although it does lean pretty heavily into one of Christie's less charming favourite devices, Strong Silent Man Who is Also a Massive Sexist as the hero. (At least, unlike in Taken at the Flood in particular, this book's sexist is not also an abuser).

Overall, crackingly good story that uses Poirot perfectly. Still a favourite. 8.5/10.

7. The Mystery of the Blue Train (Poirot, 1928)

This is one of the mid-band Poirots for me, and remains so on re-read. On the plus side, it's got a great setting, voluptuously described by Christie, and the core action takes place on a train, which I always like. On the minus side, Christie's own snobbery and penchant for awful men is on full display here, not to mention her oftentimes hilarious xenophobia towards Americans. Katherine Grey, the ostensible heroine, comes off as more anaemic and less likeable than I think Christie intended (possibly reinforced by her asinine choice at the end of the book). The mystery itself, however, is pretty good - I recall that I only partially worked it out when I first read it. Overall, as a story, it lands at 7/10 for me.

RUNNING LIST

Poirot books targeted (highlighted when read):

1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920): 6.5/10
2. The Murder on the Links (1923): 6.5/10
3. Poirot Investigates (1924, ss): 4.5/10
4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926): 8.5/10
5. The Big Four (1927): 4/10
6. The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928): 7/10
7. Peril at End House (1932): 7/10
8. Lord Edgware Dies (1933) 
9. Murder on the Orient Express (1934) 
10. Three Act Tragedy (1935) : 6/10
11. Death in the Clouds (1935)
12. The A.B.C. Murders (1936): 8.5/10
13. Murder in Mesopotamia (1936)
14. Cards on the Table (1936)
15. Murder in the Mews (1937, ss): 7/10
16. Dumb Witness (1937) 
17. Death on the Nile (1937) 
18. Appointment with Death (1938)
19. Hercule Poirot's Christmas (1938): 8/10
20. Sad Cypress (1940)
21. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (1940) 
22. Evil Under the Sun (1941): 8.5/10
23. Five Little Pigs (1942): 9/10
24. The Hollow (1946) 
25. The Labours of Hercules (1947, ss)
26. Taken at the Flood (1948) 
27. Mrs McGinty's Dead (1952)
28. After the Funeral (1953) 
29. Hickory Dickory Dock (1955)
30. Dead Man's Folly (1956)
31. Cat Among the Pigeons (1959)
32. The Clocks (1963)
33. Third Girl (1966)
34. Hallowe'en Party (1969)
35. Elephants Can Remember (1972)
36. Poirot's Early Cases (1974, ss)
37. Curtain (written about 1940, published 1975) 

Miss Marple books targeted (highlighted when read):

1. The Murder at the Vicarage (1930, Novel): 7.5/10
2. The Thirteen Problems (1932, short story collection featuring Miss Marple, also published as The Tuesday Club Murders): 8/10
3. The Body in the Library (1942, Novel): 8.5/10
4. The Moving Finger (1943, Novel): 5.5/10
5. A Murder Is Announced (1950, Novel)
6. They Do It with Mirrors (1952, Novel) – also published in the United States as Murder With Mirrors
7. A Pocket Full of Rye (1953, Novel)
8. 4.50 from Paddington (1957, Novel) – also published in the United States as What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!
9. The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side (1962, Novel)
10. A Caribbean Mystery (1964, Novel): 5/10
11. At Bertram's Hotel (1965, Novel): 8/10
12. Nemesis (1971, Novel)
13. Sleeping Murder (1976, Novel)

Tommy and Tuppence and stand-alone books targeted (highlighted when read):

1. And Then There Were None (1939): 8.5/10
2. The Pale Horse (1961): 8/10
3. The Secret Adversary (1922 novel): 5.5/10
4. Partners in Crime (1929 short story collection): 6/10
5. N or M? (1941 novel)
6. By the Pricking of My Thumbs (1968 novel)
7. Postern of Fate (1973 novel)