[Book 88] Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie (1948)

A May-December marriage puts makes a young woman a fabulously wealthy heiress when her much older and very rich spouse is suddenly killed by a bomb in the London Blitz. It seems also that this young widow is doubly unlucky since she is now twice widowed, with her first husband dying of a tropical disease while alone with his loyal porters in Darkest Nigeria.

Years later, there are rumours her first husband is still alive meaning her second marriage was invalid…but do these rumour have any basis in fact? And will a simple rumour of bigamy drive someone to murder?

Yet another convoluted Hercule Poirot story written by that maven of Mystery, Dame Christie (it’s also been published under the much better title There is a Tide).

I found this pretty so-so over all. I found the build-up with the extended family of the rich man rather overly long with rather dull and boring characters, but there were enough fair-play twists, turns and red-herrings to completely fool me by the end of the final chapter. Still, I’d save reading this for the die-hard Poirot or Christie fan, and I’d suggest that more casual mystery fans not make this their first exposure to her famous Belgium detective.

::B::

[Book 81] The Underdog and other Stories by Agatha Christie (1951)

Eight early and nifty short mystery stories and one mystery novella featuring Hercule Poirot.

While the novella (the eponymous title of this collection) was rather dull, the shorter mysteries were crisp and very entertaining. Some even paused close to the end of each story with a paragraph inviting the reader to guess whodunnit.

List of stories in this collection:

The Under Dog (1926)
The Plymouth Express (1923)
The Affair at the Victory Ball (1923)
The Market Basing Mystery (1925)
The Lemesurier Inheritance (1925)
The Cornish Mystery (1925)
The King of Clubs (1923)
The Submarine Plans (1925)
The Adventure of the Clapham Cook (1925)

::B::

[Book 79] The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie (1947)

In the forward of this collection the celebrated Belgium detective, Hercule Poirot, on the eve of his retirement (hah! as if…), decides somewhat quixotically to take only a final 12 cases to end his career as a consulting detective.

However, those final cases have to be special. Poirot has decided he will only take on cases that evoke the mythology or seem similar to one of the famous twelve legendary labours of his own Olympian name-sake, Hercules.

The stories in this collection include:

“The Nemean Lion”
“The Lernaean Hydra”
“The Arcadian Deer”
“The Erymanthian Boar”
“The Augean Stables”
“The Stymphalean Birds”
“The Cretan Bull”
“The Horses of Diomedes”
“The Girdle of Hyppolita”
“The Flock of Geryon”
“The Apples of Hesperides”
“The Capture of Cerberus”

These aren’t the best Hercule Poirot stories Agatha Christie has written, as there is little time for character development or complex plotting.  And some of the linkages to the original Labours are somewhat strained and far-fetched.  A missing Pekinese standing in as the monstrous Nemean Lion in the very first story? Please.

Still, each of these stories are fun little logic puzzles and are entertaining in their own right, and one story each night makes for fine a nice mystery snack just before bedtimes.

::B::

[Book 77] The Hollow by Agatha Christie (1946)

A middle aged successful Harley Street physician has been shot dead in the garden of a country mansion.  His body lies artistically staged over the edge of a pond whose waters turn wine dark with blood.  Standing over him with a stunned expression is the man’s wife holding a smoking revolving. And Hercule Poirot is right on the scene of this tableaux of obvious murder.  Or  is it?

This is yet another entry in the long-running Hercule Poirot mysteries which I’ve been trying to read sequentially in order.  In fact it’s book 25 of the series, the first Post War Poirot. It was originally titled Murder After Hours when first published back in the UK in 1946.

I found this mystery somewhat of a slog to get through, and this was somewhat of a return to the rigid plotting of Agatha Christie’s early murders.  The lead up to the murder was quite long and prolonged and both Death and Poirot himself didn’t show up until page 68, a good 1/3 into the book proper (Christie herself thought that having Poirot show up rather ruin the book).  I found most of the cast either annoying, damp, or fey, or some combination of the above.

I was also able to figure out who the Murderer in this one, too, which vaguely disappointed me, too.

::B::

[Book 64] Murder in Retrospect by Agatha Christie (1942)

As part of my effort to read all of the Hercule Poirot stories in order (and having skipped over The Patriotic Murders and Evil Under the Sun as I’ve recently read them) I’ve finally come up to this one. 

Murder in Retrospect is aptly named, as Poirot is asked to solve a 16 year old murder by none of than the daughter of the woman convicted of the crime who later died in prison.  A daughter who is convinced her late mother wasn’t a murderess who killed her own spouse.

Naturally, this begs the question, then who really was the killer?

Even after this long delay in years, by artfully interviewing the 5 other suspects, and then carefully reading their own biased accounts, Poirot neatly avoids one trap (that I glumly admit I fell into) and manages to explain what really happened in a final drawing room styled scene.

Yet another superb Golden Age Whodunnit. It’s been subsequently re-released many times, and in North America has been published as The Five Little Pigs.

::B::

[Book 61] Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie (1940)

Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
in     O, prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.

Act 2, Scene IV, Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare

Sad Cypress is latest book I’ve read in my determined quest to read all the Hercule Poirot mysteries of Agatha Christie in sequential order.

After reading yet another diabolical mystery from this author, my latest advice to everyone is to stay away from fish-paste sandwiches.

::B::

[Book 55] The Regatta Mystery (and other stories) by Agatha Christie (1939)

Fun and very readable collection of mystery short stories penned by Dame Christie in the 1930s.

Here you get five Hercule Poirot  mystery stories, two Parker Pynes,  a Miss Marple, plus a quasi-ghost story to round things out.

::B::

[Book 26] Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie (1940)

The remote and seaside resort of the Jolly Roger Hotel  located on privately owned Smuggler’s Island off the Devon coast of England, is naturally the site of murder when the semi-retired consulting detective Hercule Poirot was on hand.

I’m chagrined to confess that Dame Christie fooled me again in this whodunnit  despite my ignoring most of the obvious red herrings she threw in my way.

Yet another great Golden Age fair-play detective story in this series.

::B::

[Book 21] <b>Hercule Poirot’s Christmas</b> by Agatha Christie (1938)

A fabulously rich and wicked old man invites his local and his distant relations home for Christmas.  The purported reason of the invitation is to establish family harmony and letting bygones be bygones during this holiday season.  However, the old man is up to his old tricks, and not only does he delight in stirring up trouble among his relations, he also announces that there’ll be a new will made up on Boxing Day.

Naturally, he doesn’t even make it to Christmas…

Another excellent whodunnit by the mistress of mystery and mayhem. Only at the final summing up did I figure out who did it (but not why…) before Poirot came up with his solution.

::B::

[Book 11] Appointment With Death, by Agatha Christie (1937/1938)

A poisonous old windbag who controls the family fortune and dominates her cowed family decides on a vacation to the Middle East.

Naturally Hercule Poirot is also traveling through Palestine and Jordan, and is there in Petra when his detective services are called for.

Naturally, the woman dies.  But was it a natural death or murder?

I thought this story was a simple and straightforward whodunnit and smugly had the killer picked out halfway through the story.  And then the identity of the real murderer is revealed by Poirot in the final chapter.  Looking back, all the clues were there, and there was no cheating, only brilliant misdirection.

Curse you, Dame Christie, for fooling me again!

::B::