Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

A young actress, Arlena Stuart Marshall, is brutally strangled on the cliffs of a seaside resort.  Each of the guests at the Jolly Roger Hotel has a compelling motive, including Arlena's brand new husband, who seems to be the only man on the island not utterly distracted by her beauty.  It is obvious to all the visitors that Patrick Redfern was violently smitten, much to the distress of his own wife.  And the women hotel guests saw the frivolous and flirtatious starlet in a rather different light.  Only Hercule Poirot, who has come to the Jolly Roger for some much-needed relaxation, can sift through the murderous secrets and macabre clues to unravel the mystery at this secluded playground by the sea. 

It's been a while since I read my last Agatha Christie mystery, and since I'm supposed to be reading them in order, I figured I better get my ass in gear. I wish I could tell you a definitive reason why I've been neglecting not only my favorite author, but my own personal self challenge, but I'm not sure it's all that easy to explain.  I know part of it was the romance binge I was on for a while, a binge I'm starting to week myself off of, but I think another part of it was that Evil Under the Sun was the next book.

I've previously read Evil Under the Sun, in my preblogging days that is, and it has never been a favorite.  I know a lot of Dame Agatha fans that love this one, but I've just never really bought into it all that much. I'm not saying this is a horrible book, because she really never wrote a horrible one, but it is a humdrum outing for me.  When I picked it up this time, I did try to put my previous opinions aside, and go in with an open mind.  And I can admit, that there were certain aspects of the plot and characters that I was able to enjoy more this time around, but it's that blasted ending I just can't get my mind around.

Setting aside the fact that I actually like the killer(s), though they end up being a truly evil person, I think she dropped the ball on setting up the motive, and even a bit with the killer's backstory.  A backstory that Poirot discovers in the end, though why he even looked in the area he did, is still beyond me.  Because the killer's past behavior is so important to the solution, I felt it should have been fleshed out a bit more  I would have liked to have at least seen a few glimpses of that evil in the day to day actions of the killer(s).  In my mind, there isn't even a hint of it, but who knows, maybe they are so infinitesimal, I'm still missing the clues after my third read of this one.  And as far as the solution itself, the way the crime was committed, it's so far out there, it just boggles my mind.  I guess, yes, like all of her solutions, it was physically possible for everything to happen in the manner it did, but it's an even bigger stretch for me with this one.  I can't fall into the willing suspension of disbelief that is so important when reading fiction.

With all that against it, I would still take Evil Under the Sun over most of the "Cozy" mystery stuff being written today.

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Back Cover:

Even the great detective Hercule Poirot harbored a deep and abiding fear of the dentist, so it was with some trepidation that he arrived at the celebrated Dr. Morley's surgery for a dental examination.  But what neither of them knew was that only hours later Poirot would be back to examine the dentist, found dead in his own surgery.

Turning to the other patients for answers, Poirot finds other, darker, questions....

This will make 21 Hercule Poirot novels put behind me, which means I only have another 16 of his books to go.  I still have plenty of other books to go through in my Agatha Christie self challenge, but knowing I'm over half way done with Poirot is sort of bitter sweet for me.  I make no secret of that fact that he is not my favorite character of all time.  I find him to be rather pompous and aggravating at times.  But despite all that, deep down, I really do like him.  There has not been a character like him, before or after, and I'm really not looking forward to saying goodbye to him quite yet.

With all that being said, One, Two, Buckle My Shoe is not my favorite Poirot novel, not even close to it.  I think I'm getting rather tired of the few characterizations that Christie used in this one, and it's starting to come off as just a tad bit classist to me.  It get we always need to take the times a book was written in, but I'm tired of how she uses one particular character type all too often, and I'm pretty sure it's not always necessary to the story as a whole. All too often there will be a young man, sometimes a young woman, who is not only from a lower class background, but has wildly different political or economic beliefs from those held by the more "respectable" characters.

They are always described in negative ways, both in appearance and in temperament  There is almost nothing about them that is sympathetic or easy to like, though I tend to like them anyway.  They are rarely ever the killer, but they are always suspected, and sometimes suspected strongly.  Even when the detective, in this case Poirot, figures out they had nothing to do with it, the disdain for that particular character is still there.    This book had two such young men, and they do come across as rather angry and crude, but I can't help but think it's Christie's prejudices at work here.

As far as the mystery itself goes, I guess it was a pretty standard, middle of the road Christie story.  And I guess what I mean by that, was while it didn't blow me away, it was solid and well thought out.  It's never going to hold a place in my labyrinth of a brain.  I will never remember the names of the characters, or the pertinent plot twists, but it was still an okay read for me.  You have to remember this is Agatha Christie, so even a mediocre read like this, is ten times better than the average "cozy" mystery being written today.

Challenges: Vintage Mystery Bingo (O2)

The Monogram Murders by Sophie Hannah

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

"I'm a dead woman, or I shall be soon..."

Hercule Poirot's quit supper in a London coffeehouse is interrupted when a young woman confides to him tat she is about to be murdered.  She is terrified - but begs Poirot not to find and punish her killer.  Once she is dead, she insists, justice will have been done.

Later that night, Poirot learns that three guests at a fashionable London hotel have been murdered, and a monogrammed cufflink has been placed in ache one's mouth. Could there be a connection with the frightened woman?  While Poirot struggles to put together the bizarre pieces of the puzzle, the murderer prepares another hotel bedroom for a fourth victim....

This is not going to be a very long review. In actuality, I could probably do it in a sentence or two, but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be fair to anyone involved.  So I'm going to at least try to get a paragraph or two out of it, albeit short ones.

I guess when it comes down to it, this was not an Agatha Christie book, nor was it really Hercule Poirot dwelling among the pages.  I'm not sure how high my expectations were going into it, but I'm pretty sure they didn't come close to being met.  I don't have a lot of experience with literary pastiches, but the few I have read, were more like they were having fun with an author's style, not trying to imitate it.  I think the author tried too hard, and didn't allow herself to play around with the way Agatha Christie wrote, or in how she treated Hercule Poirot.  In the end I was left with a book that wasn't all that fun to read, didn't feel like an Agatha Christie mystery, and gave a pale imitation of Poirot. This wasn't the Poirot I've developed a rather complicated love/hate relationship with over the years.  It was a shadow of the man, they shared a name, maybe a phrase of two, but that's about it. To be fair, had the author taken the more playful route, I'm not sure I would have been any happier, but I think I would have enjoyed the book more.

Now had the author chose to release this book as a standalone mystery, with no ties to the world created by Agatha Christie, I think I would have been able to get into the story a bit more, and maybe even grown to like it.  It's not a mystery I would ever call a favorite, or try to bully all my friends into reading, but it was a solid piece of work, that didn't have huge gaping holes in it's logic.  However, I was so distracted by the whole Agatha Christie thing, that I was never able to let go and lose myself in the story.

The one truly redeeming aspect of this book, the one thing I will take away from it in a positive way, is that I really did enjoy Edward Catchpool.  He's not Hastings, but I think he held his own against this version of Poirot, and had this been a book with him as the starring detective, I know I would have liked it more.  I would hope that the author would choose to go forward with him, and if she does, I'll look forward to spending more time with him.

I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review this book, even if my review is way late.  Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.

And Then There Were None - 1945

The concept is pretty simple.  Eight complete strangers are invited to a mysterious island home, by a host that none of them know, a Mr. U.N. Owen.  Once there, they are met by two servants, who had just arrived themselves, and have instructions to make the guests feel welcome. After a dinner, conducted with a still absent host, all ten of them are accused of murders, that for whatever reason, the courts could not touch,  murders their host feels they should be punished for.  What follows is a twisted little game, following the lyrics of a children's nursery rhyme, resulting in them being killed, one by one.

The source material for this movie, Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, has always been my absolute favorite mystery from her, or anyone else.  When I was a kid, the book was still being called Ten Little Indians, which was an improvement over it's original title.  I don't believe I ever saw a movie adaptation of this until a few years ago, when I happened to stumble upon a DVD of this one.  Much like I did with The Bat, it was one of those cheaper DVDs that used to sit at the checkout counter of big box stores, but regardless of who released it, I knew I had to own it.

Directed in 1945, by Rene Clair for 20th Century Fox, this was the first film adaptation of the book.  And in my humble opinion, it's still the best.  Now like all of them, except for a Russian adaptation, it follows the ending that Christie wrote for the stage play, not for the novel.  Honestly, I'm of two minds on that.  I love the book ending, it's perfect, it wraps everything up, and justice is served all around.  But the hopeless romantic in me, the guy who always roots for a happy ending, loves the way it ends.  I would love to see them redo this one at some point in time, with the book ending, just to see what I think of it.

Two other points on the differences between the movie and the books, one some of the names are changed, though I can really find no reason for that.  Maybe it was done to match the names in the play, but not sure if they were any different from the movie version.  The other change, and the one I find the most interesting, is in the crimes three of the guests are accused of.

Two of them involved the death of children, and one, of the suicide of a unwed, teenage girl.  In the book, Vera Claythorne is accused of allowing her boyfriend's nephew to drown.  Because she was jealous of the kid, she allowed and encouraged him, to swim out past his abilities, and didn't do anything to save him.  In the movie it's her sister's fiance she is accused of bumping off, though no motive is given.  In the movie, Prince Nikita Starloff is accused of running a couple over, simply by going too fast and not paying attention.  In the book, it's Anthony Marston who is accused of doing the same thing, but this time, mowing down two children. Neither men were able to show any sort of regret for the deaths, other than for losing their driver's licenses. Emily Brent, is accused of turning away her young problem of a nephew, which resulted in his death.  In the book, she turns out her maid, who became pregnant, out of marriage of course. In both cases her rigid morality would not allow her to show any symphony.  Because those cases dealt with child murder, and unwed pregnancy, it was determined that they would not live up to the Motion Picture Production Code, which ruled Hollywood at the time.  Apparently the public could not be exposed to such horrors.

Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;

One choked his little self and then there were nine.

Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;

One overslept himself and then there were eight.

Eight little Indian boys travelling in Devon;

One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.

Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;

One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.

Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;

A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

Five little Indian boys going in for law;

One got in Chancery and then there were four.

Four little Indian boys going out to sea;

A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

Three little Indian boys walking in the zoo;

A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Two little Indian boys playing in the sun;

One got all frizzled up and then there was one.

One little Indian boy left all alone;

He went out and hanged himself and then there were none

The host of this little party, U.N. Owen, has gathered together a stellar cast of some of the best character actors of all time; C. Aubrey Smith, Queenie Leonard, Walter Huston, Barry Fitzgerald, Mischa Auer, Richard Haydn, Roland Young, June Duprez, Judith Anderson, and Louis Hayward (who I have always had a slight crush on).  Every single one of these actors, regardless of how much screen time they are given, the order in which they die determines that, embody their characters to the nth degree.  I won't tell you which two of them manage to escape the island, but you can probably guess that I'm happy about one of them.

Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

Elinor Carlisle always assumed she would marry her childhood friend and distant cousin, Roderick Welman.  Instead he fell in love with Mary, whom Elinor and Roderick used to play with on their Aunt Laura's lavish estate.  When Mary is gruesomely poisoned by morphine, suspicions naturally fall upon Elinor.

Then Aunt Laura, who bequeathed her estate and fortune to Elinor, is also found to have died from a morphine overdose.  The murderer seems obvious to everyone - everyone, that is, except Hercule Poirot.  The Belgian sleuth summons all his powers to unravel the intricacies of a case that seems deceptively simple on the surface.

I'm so glad that the synopsis is a little off on Hercule Poirot's involvement in this book, yes he is in it, but as in The Mystery of the Blue Train, he is an almost off page participant.  He is there in the beginning, and he does solve the case in the end, but that's it.   The middle section, the huge middle section, is simply the story itself.  How the characters interacted with each other, the way misunderstandings grew into suspicions, the way characters were manipulated and discarded like trash, all take center stage.  For that matter, Poirot is only brought in at the behest of young Dr. Lord, who seems to have taken a fancy to Elinor.  He's more than an afterthought, but not by much.  And I loved this book for that reason.  It's the perfect dose of Poirot for me, too bad the rest of his books aren't as sparse in his usage.

When I first cracked the book open, I was struck be the initial similarities between it and The State Vs. Elinor Norton by Mary Roberts Rinehart.  The Rinehart proceeded this one by quite a few years, so at first I was feeling a little trepidation.  I was concerned that Dame Agatha had "borrowed" from my second favorite mystery author of all times.  Luckily, other than they both have a woman named Elinor on trial for murder, and that both books both open with the trial, and they both have a male bystander in love the with heroine,  they don't really have all that much in common.  The victims, the motives, the plot twists, and the solution, are all completely different between the two books, so by the end I was able to breathe a little easier.

I can't say that the mystery itself compelled me all that much, it was a little twisty and circumvent for my taste, but the characterization more than made up for that.  More than anything, this is a character novel, driven by them, and created for them to live their lives. From Elinor, Dr. Lord, Roderick, Mary, the two nurses taking care of Aunt Laura, to Mary's abusive father and even on down to Poirot, it's the characters that drive this story, not the mystery.  I think it's the family dynamics that turned the story in that direction, because first and foremost, it's family relationships that are at the heart of the entire damn thing.

Favorite Fictional Character --- Jane Marple

I can't believe I've gone almost 5 years without posting about some of my favorite mystery detectives.  The fact that I've skipped them for so long, shames me to the core  How can I say I'm a mystery lover, and not share my love of some of the greatest detectives ever dreamed up.  So I'm going to rectify that this month.  And a month that celebrates detectives can't start off on the wrong foot.  It needs to start with the Queen of mystery fiction, Agatha Christie, and her lovable spinster detective, Miss Marple.

Much like Jessica Fletcher, no matter how much I love Jane Marple, I'm  pretty sure I would not want to be her neighbor.  Cabot Cove and St. Mary Mead, the village Miss Marple lives in, have to be two of the deadliest places to live.  The towns are so small, that I would have to see what the mortality rates would be, compared to their respective populations.  So while I may go visit her for a nice cuppa and good conversation, I don't want to live within a hundred miles of her.

However, if I was ever murdered, or suspected of killing someone else, I would defiantly want her around.  I would dare say that she rivals Sherlock Holmes in her ability to notice what's going on around her.  She is a student of the human behavior, and not much passes her by.  She can spot a lie, understand a motive, and relates it all back to something that happened in the village.  She draws comparisons between whatever death she is looking into, to everyday mishaps in the village.    The maid who ran away with the fishmonger's son 20 years ago, will become relevant to a business partner deciding he didn't need his partner around anymore.

No matter how nosy she is, how much she is willing to butt in wherever she feels like, you can't help but love her.  Her nosiness isn't malicious, she's just curious.  She wants to know what's going on around her, partly to understand human nature, and I think, partly because she can't help herself.  In an age that limited what women could do educationally, a woman who had a curious mind didn't have a lot of outlets.  Sure she could study and read all the books she wanted, but that wouldn't be enough for a woman with Jane Marple's brain.  She would not be satisfied with that, she would need to understand why people did the things they do, what motivates them.  What better way to do that, than to study those around her.

Even with all the intelligence that is residing under her grey hair, I wouldn't want her to solve my death, if she didn't have a habit of dong it with a certain gentleness.  Much like Maisie Dobbs, she truly seems to care about those around her, even those that committed the crime  She understands them in a way that most detectives wouldn't normally even try to do.  I think that's part of the reason why she's so damn good.  It's her complete understanding and sympathy for the human nature that allows her to do what she does, and do it so well.

The Regatta Mystery by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Back Cover:

There's a body in a trunk; a dead girl's reflection is caught in a mirror; and one corpse is back from the grave, while another is envisioned in the recurring nightmare of a terrified eccentric.  What's behind such ghastly misdeeds?  Try money, revenge, passion, and pleasure.  With multiple motives, multiple victims, and multiple suspects, it's going to take a multitude of talent to solve these clever crimes.

In this inviting collection, Agatha Christie enlists the services of her finest - Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Parker Pyne - and puts them each to the test in the most challenging cases of their careers.

You already know that I adore Agatha Christie and that I adore short stories, and for the most part, the combination is always a winner for me.  The fact that this collection features Jane Marple and Parker Pyne should have made my enjoyment a slam dunk, a touchdown, and a home run all rolled into one.  Sadly their involvement wasn't enough to save the overall collection for me, Jane only had one story.

I'm not saying I hated it, or even disliked it, because I didn't.  If these stories were written by any other author, I would probably be gushing right about now. Dame Agatha at her worst, is still better than most authors at their peak.  To put it simply, most of the stories were too easy to figure out.  With the Hercule Poirot stories, which there were too many of, I pretty much knew who the killer was going to be from the get go.  The clues weren't subtle enough, the conclusion almost too easy to figure out, and the killer was the obvious choice.  They seemed to lack her usual twists and turns, which she is so good at.  Granted, those twists can be harder to do in such a short piece of writing, but I don't seem to have had the same issue with her earlier short story collections.

Of all the stories, there was one that seemed to be quite a bit different from the vast majority of her writings.  "In a Glass Darkly", does not feature any of her regular characters, nor is anyone murdered.  There is no crime to solve, relationship to untangle, or problem to solve, at least not in the traditional mystery sort of way.  Instead it reads like something that should have appeared on CBS Mystery Radio, slightly dark and suspenseful, with just a touch of the paranormal.  It's so simple in its idea and execution, but it's the story that has the most impact.  After all that, it even ends with a happy ending.  It's the gem of the book, and the one story that will stick me with for a time to come.

Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie (And How This Book Forced Me To Rethink Homophobia And Racism In Older Fiction)

Normally, I would start off the review by providing the synopsis from either the dust jacket or the back cover, but that's not going to happen this time around.  For those of you who still want to see it, I'll put it at the end of this post.  The reason for change is pretty simple, I could not start off as if this was going to be a normal review.  It's actually going to be a rather rambling, hopefully coherent, thought process put down on paper, albeit it's a computer screen this time around.

It's never easy making a moral judgement about a book, or even part of a book, let alone one first published in 1939.  Making those judgement based on the way a reader thinks in 2014, is especially difficult. I try to not do it, and for the most part I've succeeded, but the older I'm getting, the harder that is becoming.  Blatant homophobia, racism, and sexism, blanket earlier works of fiction, even by those authors you try to ignore it from.  For me, one of those authors has always been Agatha Christie.

I was able to ignore the racist language in And Then There Were None, despite the tinge of remorse I felt at ignoring it.  It's the same sense of  remorse I feel when I choose to ignore the lawn jockey furniture that peppers some of my favorite movies, The Thin Man and The Women, being two examples.  The mere idea that I'm able to brush early examples of racism aside in early works, annoys the hell out of me.  I feel as if it should be a bigger deal to me, and that I should feel some sort of outrage and shock by such ignorance.  Be that as it may, as uncomfortable as it makes me,  I can brush it aside, and explain it away.

You see, it doesn't affect me personally.  As an Italian American, who looks German, I've never been personally affronted by such behavior.  I've been called a wop and a dago before, but it was by someone who didn't understand what the hell they were saying, and despite their word choice, there was no hostility behind it.  I've seen it directed at my friends, and I'm offended for them, but it still doesn't wound me personally.  The few times I have had comments directed towards me, it's because I mainly date men who are not white.  I've been called a traitor to my race, and as uncomfortable as that makes me, I've chalked it up to ignorance and have been able to ignore it.  I don't have to live with racism every day of my life.  I'm offended by it, it angers me, it makes me uncomfortable when I see it from others, but it doesn't wound me the way it would someone whose skin pigment, makes them a target.  And because of that, I'm able to brush aside examples of racism in early fiction and movies, I blame it on the times, and allow myself the knowledge that such examples would never happen today, at least I hope they wouldn't.  I would like to think that if And Then There Were None was written today, Dame Agatha would not have used the N word, nor used some of the imagery she did.

What I can't brush off so easily, what does wound me to the bone, is the homophobic way gay men, and lesbians, were portrayed by most authors or directors.  I still try to blame the era the book was written in or the film was produced in, but the older I'm getting, the harder that's getting.  I find myself taking those portrayals personally, as if they are directed towards me.  I know it doesn't make sense, especially since Murder is Easy was written in 1939, I wasn't born until 1976. But when the only gay character in the book, despite that word never being used, is an effeminate and creepy Satanist, it's hard to to not be bugged by that.  It's even harder to forgive it when there are no positive portrayals in the book, or in any other book by her.  When you add in the fact that every gay character I've run into, from any author writing a book in the same era, runs to type, it is offensive.

Sometimes, despite the hostility that is still directed at gays and lesbians in this country, and lets not even talk about other countries like Russia and Uganda, it's hard to remember that it wasn't that long ago that almost every doctor in the country considered homosexuals to be insane, or mentally depraved at best.   That you could be locked up in an asylum, against your will, and left to die because you were gay.  And that was if you were lucky in the asylum, if not, it was much worse.  You would have been subjected to horrific medical castrations, and even the occasional lobotomy, making you less than yourself.  But that was the point, much like racism, homophobia is meant to reduce someone to less than human, the other.  And it's with that context in the back of my mind, that I do find myself judging some of my favorite authors for the way they chose to depict gay men and women.

As I age, I'm finding it harder to forgive these portrayals.  I'm tired of making the excuse that it was the sign of the times, that we wouldn't be portrayed in such fashion anymore.  I want to pretend that Doris Miles Disney could not portray Wally Howard, the murderer in That Which is Crooked, as an effeminate serial killing mama's boy, and lay the blame on his murderous instincts on that fact that he was gay.  But then I'm confronted by the way Rhys Bowen portrays gay men in her current Royal Spyness series, as either jokes or buffoons.  And as much as I love Georgie and the world she inhabits, I'm finding it harder and harder to continue with the series.  While the gay men in her books aren't the villains, they are still portrayed as less than men, as a stereotypical joke to be laughed at.  When I'm forced to think about it, I don't think Christie or Disney are any worse than Bowen in this regard.  And in a way, Bowen is worse, because she should know better.  We no longer live in an age where homosexuality is treated as a disease, at least not in the Western world.  I can't blow it off the way I do the earlier works, and then I find myself wondering why I'm drawing that line.  Why am I willing to forgive ignorance at all?  Regardless of when it was written, hate is still hate.  That's sentiment behind it isn't any different.

Then comes the hard part for me though, and I'm still not sure what I'm going to do about it.  I've already judged Doris Miles Disney for her ignorance, and I will never read another of her books.  When it comes to Dame Agatha though, that is a harder judgement call.  I still love her and her books.  I get lost in her ability to weave a mystery out of thin air, and turn it into the most complex labyrinth in existence. Other than one or two instances, racism and homophobia really aren't written into her stories, though even those few times are still unforgivable.  Even now, as I'm writing this, I'm trying to justify my decision to keep reading her books, and that bugs me.  I should be able to walk away and never look back, but I can't.  For what ever reason, I'm going to judge authors differently, through whatever lens I conjure out of my ass.  It won't be fair, it won't make sense, but I'm going to have to start drawing lines somewhere.  I just need to figure out what those lines are.

And here is the synopsis I promised you, afterwards I'll even say a few things about the story itself.

Luke Fitzwilliam does not believe Miss Pinkerton's wild allegation that a multiple murderer is at work in the quiet English village of Wychwood and that her local doctor is next in line.

But within hours, Miss Pinkerton has been killed in a hit-and-run car accident.  Mere coincidence?  Luke is inclined to think so - until he reads int he Times of the unexpected demise of Wychwood's Dr. Humbleby...

I'm hoping that after you have read the previous eight paragraphs, you aren't left with the idea that I hated the book, because I didn't.  Some of my favorite Agatha Christie books have been her standalone novels, even if PBS put Jane Marple into the TV version of this one.  She seems to be at her most creative when she is trying to write a story around the personalities of her reoccurring detectives.  It's not often that she delved into the area of magic and Satanism, even if it mainly served as the backdrop for a rash of murders.  It's even rarer that the main character in her standalone was a man, and Luke was fun to read.  He delves into solving the mystery, the way I delve into a plate of potato dumplings, with relish and determination.

The secondary characters, except for the creepy gay Satanist, are well rounded and quirky enough to live in a village called Wychwood.  I'm not sure she assembled a more eccentric group of people into such a small piece of land.  The interactions between them are poisonous and hilarious, and sets up the perfect psychopath to go to work.

Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Back Over:

Christmas Eve, and the Lee family's reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture and a high-pitched scream.  Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed.

When Hercule Poirot offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion.  It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man...

So I am ridiculously slow on my Agatha Christie self challenge.  How the hell was I naive enough to think I would be able to do this in one year?  I'm not even half way through, and it's almost five years later.  One piece of good news though, with this book, I am officially over halfway through the Hercule Poirot books!  I don't hate him anymore, but I prefer to spend my time with Jane, Parker, Tommy, and Tuppence.  They don't grate on my nerves the way Hercule does.

This wasn't a book I had read before, at least I don't remember anything about it.  I'm not even sure I've ever seen the PBS Mystery version of it.  So I was able to go into with a fresh, open mind, and I loved it.  There was nothing about it I didn't like, though it was the setting and the characters that made me fall in love and not let go.

Dame Agatha was brilliant at setting her stories, and she was on her A game here.  Who doesn't want to spend Christmas in an English manor house, with all the odd assortment of relatives and hanger-ons.  Add in a good old fashioned murder, and you have me hooked.  It's the perfect Christmas, and why someone hasn't made it happen for me yet, disappoints me every year.  So if one of you guys would be so inclined to make this happen for me this Christmas, I would really appreciate.

Appointment With Death by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

"You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"

Hercule Poirot overhears a young man saying these chilling words, then days later, the man's stepmother, known to all as a sadistic tyrant, is found dead.  But beyond a puncture wound to the wrist, the exact cause of the woman's death is unknown - and murder is only on possibility.  In his meticulous fashion, the exacting Belgian sleuth interviews each of the victim's beleaguered family members, then becomes interested in other members of the vacationing party: a doctor whose hypodermic syringe has gone missing, a domineering English matron, and an energetic young woman with an interest in the victim's son.  While few mourn the dead woman's passing, suspense mounts as Poirot closes in on the circumstances surrounding her murky death.

I can't believe that when I started my Agatha Christie self challenge back in 2009, that I thought I would be able to read all her books within a year.  Here we are, almost four years later, and I'm not even half way done with them.  Now granted, I didn't know I would get the chance to review so many great new books, or that I would discover other authors, Mary Roberts Rinehart, who would throw me off course from time to time.  Nor did I realize how much I really don't like Hercule Poirot, and that I really do need breaks in between his books.  With a few exceptions, I can't stand the man, no matter how much I respect his brain.

He is an insufferable, egotistical, vain, pompous, blowhard who thinks way too much of himself.  The fact that his ego is warranted, just makes it that much worse.  Luckily for me, he isn't on every page of Appointment with Death, but honestly, even if he was, I would still have enjoyed the book.  This was a reread for me, one I've ready many times before, and I never get tired of the "secondary" characters.

If I'm not falling head over heels in love with the Boyton children, I'm infatuated with Dr. Sarah King, who herself is falling for one of the Boyton boys.  And while I won't disclose the murderer, I must say that despite their obvious flaws, I always found myself enjoying that person when they were on the page.  Rounded out by a few others, including a rather wallflower of a woman, the cast, while smaller than most, is just as much fun to be around.  Even the bitch, excuse my language, who is our murder victim, is fun to read.

And don't get me started on the setting, from Jerusalem to Petra, the journey takes us into some of the most beautiful landscapes on Earth.  It's obvious from her writing, that it was a region that Christie loved, and cherished her time there with her husband.

All in all, Appointment with Death lives up to Christie's imagination and Poirot's brain.  It's typical genius that only this author could create, and I know it will be a book I keep visiting over and over again, no mater what I think of it's main character.

Challenges: VM (International Detectives)

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

Linnet Ridgeway has it all: beauty, brains, money, and a new, handsome husband.

Unfortunately, her husband's jilted ex-fiance - and Linnet's former best friend - has followed them on their Egyptian honeymoon cruise and seems to be shadowing the couple at every turn.  When Linnet is murdered, the killer seems obvious - until she produces an airtight alibi.  Soon all the other passengers on board, including an American lawyer, a nervous chambermaid, and a communist are suspects.  Hercule Poirot must call upon all of his skills of reason and deduction to break this case before the murderer strikes again.

After Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile is my second favorite Hercule Poirot book.  I don't think I've ever been shy on how I've expressed my feeling towards the Belgian detective, so I don't see a need to reiterate them here.  Within the pages of this book though, everything that normally annoys me with him, goes right out the window.  For whatever reason, Poirot shows an almost softer side, along the same way he did in Peril at End House.  I just reread the review I did for that one, and for some reason I didn't seem to touch upon that aspect.  Now, I really can't talk about it without giving some things away, but I'll do my best to keep it as generic as possible.

In both books, Poirot has a fondness for the murderers.  You can tell that he feels for them, and in Death on the Nile, tries to steer them onto a different course, albeit subtly.  There seems to be an almost paternal interest on his part, though watered down from what most of us would associate with that word.  It's that softer side of him, albeit a small side, that I find myself drawn to when it is shown to his reading audience.  It's a side that Colonel Hastings can bring out of him when he is around, but most of the time it's only caught in faint glimmers or gestures.  With Death on the Nile, it seems to come out more, and I almost get to the point where I like Poirot, as opposed to just respecting his mind and abilities.  Dont' get me wrong though, the arrogance and superiority are still there, but seeing a more three dimensional detective helps me ignore it more than normal.

As far as the mystery goes, which I won't tell you anything about, it's typical Agatha Christie.  And by that, I mean it's brilliant.  The slight of hand Christie displays with her plotting and story development is genius at times, and she doubles down here.  I still remember the first time I read this book, and the way I reacted when the solution was presented.  I never saw it coming, but when I pondered on it a bit, it was the only solution possible given the way she developed the story and it's characters.

And I want to end on a quick side note.  One of my favorite characters in the novel is Salome Otterbourne, a famous romance novelist who specializes in making her books as filled with sex as possible.  The woman has sex on the brains, and is a raging alcoholic.  If she wasn't such a dysfunctional character, she would be hilarious to be around.  If there is comic relief to be found in this book, it's when Salome is presenting herself to the world.  She was played beautifully by Angela Lansbury in the 1978 movie version, pure perfection.

And if any of you watched her TV show, Murder, She Wrote, you may have witnessed what I think is a little homage to that role.  In the 14th episode, "My Johnny Lies Over the Ocean", of the first season Jessica, a mystery novelist is on a cruise ship with her recently widowed niece.  Here niece is subsequently terrified at the end, and in order to get a confession from culprit, Jessica acts a drunk and speaks in much the same manner as Salome Otterbourne.  It's a hoot to watch.

Challenges: VM (Murder on the High Seas)

Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Back Cover:

Everyone blamed Emily Arundell's accident on a rubber ball left on the stairs by her frisky terrier.  But the more she thought about her fall, the more convinced she became that one of her relatives was trying to kill her....

On April 17th she wrote her suspicions in a letter to Hercule Poirot.  Mysteriously, he didn't receive the letter until June 28th... by which time Emily was already dead....

I feel like I've reviewed so many Agatha Christie books by now that I'm starting to sound like a broken record.  There are only so many different ways I can say brilliant and well worth reading.  Even her weaker books, which this is not one of, deserves to be read by even the most picky reader.  I have yet to read one of her books, even The Big Four or Murder on the Links, that doesn't rise above most of the cozy mysteries being churned out today.  So I hope you get the point, that I enjoyed this one as well.

The one item I did want to mention is the way the book ends.  I'm going to have to spoil the ending, or at least what happens to one particular person, so if you don't want to know what happens, stop reading now.

At first I thought this was a trend I was mainly seeing from male authors, but upon further reading, I've came to realize it's more about the sex of the detective in the book.  In an alarming amount of books, when the killer is a female, instead of apprehending her, the male detective lets her know that he knows it's her, and then allows her to eliminate herself.  So many of these female killers are allowed to kill themselves at the end of the book, as opposed to facing charges and possible hanging.  This isn't even the first time Hercule Poirot has allowed a woman to take herself out in this manner.

I'm not even sure how I feel about the whole thing.  I'm not sure what it is about the times, that authors were okay with the idea of allowing a woman to kill herself, rather than face justice.  I'm not sure if it's the way society looked at woman during those years, or if it's something else.  Did they just assume that women weren't strong enough to face the consequences of their actions, or was it more about not wanting to shame her publicly.  Most of the cases I've seen, when the woman does kill herself, it keeps the truth of the crimes from getting out to the public.

I'm not sure it's a plot device that would be either used or sit well with most audiences anymore.  It feels sexist to me, a little degrading to women.  I could be completely off base.  I could be the only one who feels this way.  Or I could simply be rambling right now, and nobody who reads this will have a clue of what I'm talking about.

Challenges:  VM (Repeat Offenders)

Murder in the Mews by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Back Cover:

How did a woman holding a pistol in her right hand manage to shoot herself in the left temple?  What was the link between a ghost sighting and the disappearance of top secret military plans?  Ho did the bullet that killed Sir Gervase shatter a mirror in another part of the room?  And should the beautiful Valentine Chantry flee for her life from the holiday island of Rhodes?

Hercule Poirot is face with four mysterious cases - each a miniature classic of characterization, incident, and suspense.

It feels good to have a Agatha Christie fix.  It's a pleasure that I have been ignoring, or not partaking in as much as I would like, lately.  That neglect is something I plan on doing something about this year.  In another review I commented on how a favorite book can fee like home.  I'm here to tell you that a favorite author can feel the same way.  No matter what else is going on in my life, even the worst book that Dame Christie wrote, can get me out of a funk and back into reading bliss.

When the first Christie book of the year is a collection of 4 short stories, that bliss is amplified.  While I may thoroughly enjoy her full length novels, I have a soft spot for her short stories.  She is so deft and brilliant at creating a believable plot line, well at least a plot line you can see happening, in her novels, that seeing her do the same thing in a shorter span of time, is a bigger treat.  She is able to form a full mystery story; plot, character development, and enough twists and turns to please even the harshest critic, even though the story may only be 80 or so pages.

I can't say I loved every story equally, because that will never happen.  I could have done without the second, and I absolutely loved the fourth.  Where Agatha Christie rises above the rest, is that even though I didn't enjoy the second story as much as the others, it was still better than most of the crap put out today.  That and the fact that Hercule Poirot is not one of my favorite creations of hers, doesn't help either.  I can only deal with him in small doses, so I don't tear through his books the way I do some of the others.

Challenges: A-Z, VM (Get Out of Jail Free: Short Stories)

Murder In Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

Something has terrified Louis Leidner.  In fact, she is so frightened and acting so delusional that her husband, archaeologist Dr. Eric Leidner, hires Amy Leatheran, a young nurse and the book's narrator, to look after his wife while they're on a dig in the Persian desert.  Soon Louise tells Amy that she' been receiving threatening letters from her ex-husband - who died years earlier.  The nurse assumes this is just an example of the woman's paranoia - until Louise is murdered.  Clues are few and far between, but suspects and motives abound.  It is up to Hercule Poirot to put together the pieces of this seemingly unsolvable puzzle.

I'm a sucker for mysteries that take place in locales that I'll never be able to visit.  I have serious doubts that I'll, at least anytime soon, have a chance to visit archaeological digs in the deserts of the Middle East.  So the next best thing is to delve into a juicy mystery, especially if it's from the pen of Agatha Christie.

Once again I was able to enjoy Hercule Poirot because of the narration of an intermediary, Amy Leatheran.  Amy is one of those characters that Agatha Christie was superb at creating.  She is a strong, independent woman who isn't afraid to experience something new.  I would have to admire anyone who is willing to leave their family, the only home they know, and go work half way around the world.  When she is asked to nurse a woman at a dig site, she jumps at the chance.  Where I learned to worship the ground she walked on, is the idea of seeing Poirot through her eyes.  It softens the egotism and eccentricities that Hercule is so good at displaying.  It allowed the genius he displays to seem a little more human, because she doesn't seem to take him all that seriously.  I think by the end, she respected him, but she still couldn't quite buy into the whole package of who he is.

I'm not going to go into the motives or details of the mystery itself, because that would spoil it for you, but I must say jealousy never reared it's ugly head more than in this book.  What made this book a little different from the normal Christie book though, was the setting.  Most of her books take place on a grand scale.  The books are normally set in various locations, not a single spot.  Murder in Mesopotamia for the most part takes place within a single building, which allows the tension to simmer a bit more than usual.  It allows the atmosphere to take a more prominent role, something I relish in a good mystery.

Challenges: VM (Golden Age Girls)

The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

Alice Ascher, a shopkeeper in Andover, is bludgeoned to death in her shop.  Next to die is Betty Bernard in Bexhill - strangled with her own belt.  Then, Sir Carmichael Clarke's skull is crushed in Churston.  Clearly a serial killer with an alphabetical bent is on the loose - and an urgent hunt is launched for the fiend dubbed the A.B.C. murderer.  The taunting notes inspector Hercule Poirot receives just before a murder is to take place are even more disturbing than the A.B.C. railway guide that the methodical killer leaves at the scene of each crime.  Racing against the clock, Poirot tries to decipher each cryptic message and get one step ahead of thier exceedingly clever and ruthless killer.

Ever since I decided to read all of Agatha Christie's books in publishing order, I've been trying to remember what my first Agatha Christie book was.  Now I'm not going to swear on anything I hold dear, but I'm almost positive that this was it.  I can even remember my mom giving me this one for Christmas.  So I guess, if this is THE book, than I can credit The A.B.C. Murders for getting me hooked on Agatha Christie at a young age.

I'm always a bit curious, when I can remember, to see if my childhood fondness for a book holds over to adulthood.  When it comes to a mystery or a book written for adults, it's not always a fair comparison.  I know for a fact that I was not able to pick up everything Christie was dropping when I was in the 5th grade. I was smart, but I wasn't that smart.  It's also one of those comparisons that while I'm curious to see what the results will be, I'm just a bit hesitant too.  I don't want my childhood memories dashed by the cold, hard reality of today.  I think it's a pretty safe bet to say that as far as The A.B.C. Murders go, those memories are safe and secure.

Motive is always the driving force behind a murder mystery.  Without a well articulated motive, a book can fall apart and become a nightmare for the reader.  Mystery writers tend to fall back on revenge, money, or love as the basic building block.  Now the writer will always add in a whole bunch of window dressing trying to disguise the simplicity of the motive, but in the end, if you can figure out the motive, you can solve the case.  With The A.B.C. Murders, Agatha Christie takes one of those basic motives and weaves it within a complex series of events that highlights and masks at the same time.  It's a brilliant feint on her part, and one that I really haven't seen a lot of authors use.  I just finished reading Let the Devil Sleep by John Vernon, review later this month, and I think it's the only other book I've read that uses the same concept.

Now if you couldn't tell by now, it's a devise that I absolutely adore and one that I appreciate all the more as an adult.  In the 5th grade, I understood what was going on, but I couldn't appreciate the complex nature in which Agatha Christie crafted her story.  She manipulates the concept of motive in such a way that I think I'm more in awe of her now, than I ever was before.  If there is ever an argument to be made for why you should reread books as an adult, this book is it.

Challenges: VM (Golden Age Girls)

Death In The Clouds by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Back Cover:

From seat No. 9, Hercule Poirot was ideally places to observe his fellow air passengers.  Over to his right sat a pretty young woman, clearly infatuated with the man opposite; ahead, in seat No. 13, sat a countess with a poorly concealed cocaine habit; across the gangway in seat No. 8, a detective writer was being troubled by an aggressive wasp.  What Poirot did not realize was that behind him, in seat No. 2, sat the slumped, lifeless body of a woman.

For what ever reason (Mary Roberts Rinehart) I've been neglecting my Agatha Christie self challenge and I figured I better get that corrected as soon as possible.  If I hadn't decided to read them in order, I think it would have been a bit easier.  Like my mom told me, nothing that's worth it is easy.  So getting back into the amazing imagination that Agatha Christie possessed was a treat.

Now I know you guys know that I'm not a hug fan of Hercule Poirot, I like him, but can only take so much of him.  I always imagine singing "Just a Spoonful of Sugar" when I'm reading his books.  He has a brilliant mind, and a brilliant ego to match it.  I don't know if it's that distance really does make the heart grow fonder, or if I'm actually starting to enjoy time spent with Poirot.  Either way, he didn't grate on my nerves as he normally does, and I found him just a bit endearing in this one.  I think what helped is that he seems to be just as flabbergasted by this murder as the rest of us.

Who knew you that you could create a believable (if just barely) murder that happens in a plane thousands of feet up in the air.  Throw in wasps, blowpipes, enough suspects to fill a dinner party, and you got the makings of one of the funnest mysteries I've read in a long time.  Even the characters know how far fetched the murder is.  It's one of those situations that would never happen in real life, but once it comes out of the pen of Agatha Christie, it somehow makes sense by the end.

My only quibble with it, and it's a small one, is the way the murder is investigated.  The murderer is involved, along the same lines they were in the last book, Three Act Tragedy.  I'm not even sure I would have noticed the similarity if they weren't back to back books.  It didn't get in the way of my enjoyment, I just thought it was odd using the same plot device twice in a row.

Challenges: A-Z, VM (Golden Age Ladies)

Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Back Cover: 

Sir Charles Cartwright should have know better than to allow thirteen guests to sit down for dinner.  For at the end of the evening one of them is dead - chocked by a cocktail that contained no trace of poison.

Predictable, says Hercule Poirot, the great detective.  But entirely unpredictable is that he can find absolutely no motive for murder...

I feel as if I had neglected Agatha Christie over this past year, especially when I discovered Mary Roberts Rinehart.  I feel like a spouse who has strayed a little too far, so here I am getting one last Agatha Christie book in before the end of the year.

This was a new one to me, though I had earlier seen the PBS Masterpiece Mystery! movie.  So I knew what was going to happen, but like most book to movie adaptations, the movie had left out a lot of details.  It was those details I was looking forward to discovering for the first time.  The biggest difference though was the deletion of Mr. Satterwhite from the movie.  He, more than Hercule Poirot is the star of this book.  For those of you who have no clue of what I'm speaking of, Mr. Satterwhite previously appeared in The Mysterious Mr. Quin, a book I reviewed last year.  Mr. Satterwhite is one of those older men who notice everything, study life, but never became jaded from it.  He's a great character, one that I'm glad to have met again.

There is no way I can got into the details of the mystery without giving too much away, but the title alone should give you clues into how many victims are claimed by the egomaniacal murderer, who just so happens to do it all out of a strange sense of misguided love.  It's one of the odder motives I've ever seen, but given the context of the overall storyline and the murderer's personality, it works.

Agatha Christie is by far, the most adapt author I've ever had the pleasure of reading.  She can spin a story on the end of a needle, throwing red herrings and clues with equal aplomb.  She is the perfect author and I adore her for it.

Challenges: VM

Parker Pyne Investigates by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Back Cover:

The personal ad posed a simple question: Are you happy?  If not, consult Mr. Parker Pyne.  The answer is a resounding no for a jealous wife who suspects her husband of infidelity...for a lonely widow driven to assume a new identity...for a distraught mother whose son has been kidnapped...and for the fiance of strangely reclusive bride-to-be.  But what sort of detective would solicit in the personals?  The sort who has a knack for investigating affairs of the heart.  For therein lie the darkest motives for murder.  And they are proving most lucrative for the hopelessly romantic - and highly suspicious - Inspector Parker Pyne.

I can't remember when I read this book for the first time, but I know I was in middle school, maybe 5th grade.  Back then there wasn't enough action for me to keep me interested.  I wanted mysteries that involved lots of dead bodies and nefarious plots by overly active evil doers.  For the most part those are not the cases that Mr. Parker Pyne takes.

This is a collection of 12 short stories that run the gamut from a wife wanting her husband back and it working out to a husband wanting his wife back and the same game blowing up in everybody's face.  My favorite story (non murder of course) involved a rich bitter woman who just wanted something to do with her money.  She was a widow and unhappy with life because she thought having all the money in the world would make her happy, it didn't.  Instead she was miserable and bored with life.   By the time Parker Pyne is done with her, a year has gone by, she's poor and planning a new marriage.  At first she was annoyed by the trickery involved, but then she realized she had never been happier.  These are the types of cases that take up the first 7 stories.

The final 4 all revolve around actual crimes, murder for the most part though a jewel theft and kidnapping is involved in the last story.  What I found interesting is that Parker Pyne doesn't react to those cases any differently than those that strictly involve human relationships.  He views them all the same, solves them the same, and ends up with the same results. 

Like Harley Quinn, Parker Pyne is one of Agatha Christie's more fascinating protagonists.  They are both unique characters that some how manage to stay in your mind long after you read the very few books about them.  I wish she had written more than she did.  Since she didn't, the few books she did write about them will have to mean all that much more.  I love the uniqueness she brought to Parker Pyne, I could only wish that other authors could match up to her talent.

Challenges: M&S, VM

Why Didn't They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Back Cover:

Was it a misstep that sent a handsome stranger plummeting to his death from a cliff?  Or something more sinister?  Fun-loving adventurers Bobby Jones and Frances Derwent's suspicions are certainly aroused - especially sine the man's dying words were so peculiar: Why didn't they ask Evans?  Bobby and Frances would love to know.  Unfortunately, asking the wrong people has sent the amateur sleuths running for their lives - on a wild and deadly pursuit to discover who Evans is, what it was he wasn't asked, and why the mysterious inquiry has put their own lives in mortal danger...

This was the first time I had read this book, though I had seen the PBS movie that inserted Miss Marple into it.  I must say that it is now on my ever growing list of Christie favorites.  It's just plain fun to read.

Bobby and Frankie are two young people, a little bored with life, who find themselves involved with something just a little bit exciting.  They can't not jump at the chance to find out exactly what is going on.  They throw themselves into the investigation and quickly find themselves way over their heads in danger and red herrings.  What I like about them is though they aren't very good at the sleuthing, they do it with gusto.  There is no room for self doubts or deep thinking for them and they quickly start making mistakes.  They confide in the wrong people and swallow false leads in a single gulp.  They are gut, emotional thinkers not intellecutals and it shows in how they handle themselves.  It's that wild abandon that makes the book so much fun to read though, and I would have to think Agatha Chrsitie had fun writing it.

The plost is ingenious and involves a decent sized cast of characters and a big gothic style house where things aren't always the way they seem.  Drug addiciton, insane asylums, mad doctors, suicide, wills, femme fatales, and helpless appearing women all add to the sense of drama that our two young heroes can't help but be intranced by.  They do end up solving the question of Why didn't they ask Evans?, though more by chance than skill.  So eerything works out in the end and like most of Christie's boy/girl pairings end up confessing their love at the end.

Challenges: M&S, FF, VM

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

While en route from Syria to Paris, in the middle of a freezing winter's night, the Orient Express is stopped dead in its tracks by a snowdrift.  Passengers awake to find the train still stranded and to discover that a wealthy American has been brutally stabbed to death in his private compartment.  Incredibly, that compartment is locked from the inside.  With no escape into he wintry landscape the killer must still be on board!  Fortunately, the brilliant Belgian inspector Hercule Poirot is also on board, having booked the last available berth.  He launches and immediate and urgent investigation into this vexing crime-for which each of the thirteen other passengers seems to have a motive.

As most of you know by know I'm not a huge fan of Monsieur Poirot, though I may be considered a minor fan. He tends to get on my nerves a lot.  He's arrogant, pompous, vain, and just a little snobbish.  Now I admit that he is brilliant enough and he has little competition when it comes to how his "little grey cells" work.  Normally I need someone else with him, like Hastings, in order to humanize him for me.  Or I need him to be an almost secondary character, as he was in The Mystery of the Blue Train.  Neither of those are the case in Murder on the Orient Express, which has always been my favorite Hercule Poirot book.

The storyline and plot twists take care of that for me in this one.  This is not the first time I've read this book, not even the tenth, but it may be the first time, while reading the book, that I focused on how I was feeling towards Poirot.  He seems almost toned down in this one.  The arrogance is there, but it's not as in your face.  Though that's not what makes him more real for me. 

It's how he reacts to the motive behind the killing and the subsequent investigation.  He seems almost to be emotionally reacting to the whole thing.  I'm not going to go into any details for those of you who have not read this book, but the motive for the killing is perfectly justifiable for me, and in a way Poirot may feel the same way.  I think he wants to solve this one more for personal knowledge that he could, rather than seeing the guilty parties brought to justice.  You just have to read the solution and how Poirot handles it in order to understand what I'm talking about.

Now I have seen two movie versions of this.  The first is the Albert Finney version, the second was the PBS version from last year.  Both movies, though the PBS one more so, seem to show a more conflicted, angry Poirot than what I get out of the book.  I think that anger is based more on Hercule Poirot's attitude and personality in all his other books, than what is shown in this one.  I could be completely off base on that, but maybe not.  I actually own the Albert Finney movie and may end up reviewing it on here at some later date.

No matter what, this was and still is one of my favorite Christie mysteries and I would encourage everyone to read it.

Challenges: M&S, VM