Agatha Christie Lovers discussion

Originally published 1943. Features Hercule Poirot.

Other Title: Murder in Retrospect

Take one dead lothario; add his jealous wife accused of his murder; toss in a devoted daughter who wants to clear her mother's name, and you get one of the greatest challenges of Hercule Poirot's career.

Here's the link to the previous discussion: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Has anyone else read this month’s book? I finished early this afternoon and correctly guessed the outcome for once. 😀

Also watched a documentary on Agatha Christie Sunday night on our local PBS station, Inside the Mind of Agatha Christie. Small world—today’s Final Jeopardy related to her disappearance, which was talked about in the special, but what was not mentioned was the answer to today’s final. Shall we see how smart you are? The category is British Writers:

When Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days in 1926, this British fellow writer tried to find her with the help of a spiritual medium.

I actually knew the answer to this one from reading a book by one of their American contemporaries a few years ago.

And, for anyone interested, there is another documentary Sunday, January 24, also on PBS, 10ET/9CT: Agatha Christie’s England.

The film will explore how Christie created a literary universe that shaped the world’s image of England. The settings of her books were taken from real places and the film will explore her surroundings, among them Ugbrook House, where she met her first husband, Abney Hall, the inspiration for Christie’s iconic country house murder settings, and the boathouse at Greenway, her country retreat.

I enjoyed Five Little Pigsas audiobook and then watched the tv adaptation. This is my first comment in this group. Do we use spoiler tags? Just in case I did today.
-(view spoiler)[
I get that Caroline and Amyas love each other, but there seems to be an acceptance of his infidelity because he is an artist. It is as if, as a creative genius, ordinary rules of morality and civility don't apply to him. Caroline may have "understood" him, but I'm afraid I couldn't.
-Caroline's lifelong feeling of the need to redeem herself for the childhood injury to Angela made the ending almost seem inevitable. Lot of guilt and love. (hide spoiler)]

Yes, spoiler tags are good. I agree with you on both points. The half-heard conversations and what people thought they heard or saw also contributed to the outcome.

(view spoiler)[I also wondered why no one, including the police, had considered Elsa a suspect. Everyone took her word they were in love and going to marry. She was alone with him in the garden for hours. Beer was kept in the shed. Crale complained that “everything tasted foul” that day, implying he had eaten or drunk something else that tasted bad prior to the last beer. Yet no one considered Elsa had served him a beer before the one Caroline took him? No one noted he already had a glass sitting there which Caroline refilled? That something had happened between Elsa and Crale?

Neither did anyone ask for the full discussion between Crale and Caroline in the library or note that Elsa was seen sitting on a bench near the open window. Or note the bit about the pullover—that she went inside on pretense of getting one, then later went in to get one again. It was, in my opinion, almost too obvious. (hide spoiler)]

Heather L wrote: "Has anyone else read this month’s book? I finished early this afternoon and correctly guessed the outcome for once. 😀

Also watched a documentary on Agatha Christie Sunday night on our local PBS st..."

Hi Heather. I watched that documentary on PBS as well. It was so good. I'm so excited to see Agatha Christie's England tomorrow. It should be very enlightening.

I've read Five Little Pigs and while I won't give away any spoilers here, I think it's fair to say I didn't care for it. What I didn't like were the characters. I found it hard to be sympathetic and to actually care for them. While I agree it's a great introspective on some people's lives, I just didn't like it.

[No spoilers] I thought the backstories of the characters were interesting, but somehow not developed enough to induce my buy-in. The resolution was not as sparkling as most of Poirot’s other cases. This was one of the few Poirot stories where I found the David Suchet TV adaptation more gripping than the novel.

Five Little Pigs is, in my opinion, the most unique book portraying Hercule Poirot.
it’s one of my top ten favourite books by Dame Christie.
It’s simply brilliant!
The storyline and its development is remarkable.
The writing is absolutely terrific! There is so much confidence and objectivity within this book.
The characters are all unlikeable, which is not a surprise when it comes to Agatha Christie, but the way they are described is really fascinating. It takes great knowledge of human nature.
This is my first time reading it on its original language and I did not know what to expect.
I had the ebook format published by Harper Collins (the most reliable publisher when it comes to Christie’s books), I had the hard cover edition published by Black Dog and Leventhal (blotched edition, missing passages, pages or quotes) and the audiobook narrated by Hugh Fraser (Mr. Hastings of the TV Poirot series). To listen to the audiobook while reading the physical book only doubled my joy. Hugh Fraser was amazing! If you are into audiobooks then I do recommend it (I did order a copy from the public library but as it was unavailable I found a copy on YouTube).

PS.: when I was at 52% of the book I stopped reading because I decided to watch the TV adaptation with David Suchet, as my favourite actor portraying Poirot. That adaptation was excellent!

I see the David Suchet movie is available to watch on YouTube. I might have to take advantage of that.

It wasn't bad,but not among her best.A little too easy to solve a crime after sixteen years.

Here's the link to my review for this month's book:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I liked this one ! I give it 4 stars.

The characters are not particularly interesting, but they have their charm.

There are also two interesting points :

1 – Christie had to write ‘badly’ the account of the characters, as they were not ‘professionals’ .

It’s not so easy to perform badly what you know how to do with perfection !

2 – One character has found his redemption, in a way. The other one will get nothing, but the weight of guilt forever !

Love, love loved it! I didn't see the solution to the situation. Perfect. 5 star read.

I read it several years ago and didn't love it. However, over the next year I kept remembering the descriptions of the settings, parts of the plot, etc. I guess the book really stuck with me. But by then, I could no longer remember which Christie it was because I was on a AG binge.

So had to review plots for her books. I found it and decided on a reread. The second time through I really liked it.

This one is quite good, some very good characters. I particularly liked the old governess, she was great. But as a mystery I found it a bit disappointing - both murderer and motive seemed obvious quite early on.