April 2, 2008 at 11:20 am · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
49. Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie (Mystery) 224 p.
This definitely isn’t one of my favourite Christies, although it was entertaining. The truth is, I’m not fond of any of the books Christie wrote after 1965’s At Bertram’s Hotel (although that one remains one of my favourites.) I find them mostly vague and confusing, and this one is no exception, although I enjoyed it more than most.
At a literary luncheon, a woman called Burton-Cox confronts Mrs. Ariadne Oliver about an old tragedy. Mrs. Burton-Cox’s son is involved with Celia Ravenscroft, one of Mrs. Oliver’s goddaughters, and may be contemplating marriage. Mrs. Burton-Cox wants to know whether it was Celia’s mother who killed her father, or the other way around…
Although she firmly resolved not to pass on information to such an odious woman, Mrs. Oliver does become interested in the case. Teaming up with her old friend, Hercule Poirot, she goes in search of “elephants”—people who may remember something, however inaccurate, about the fifteen-year-old case.
This book strained my credulity in a few ways. Fifteen years isn’t a particularly long time, and it seems absurd that it would be difficult to find people who remembered a murder-suicide case. Even in the book, the difficulty wasn’t so much finding people who remembered, as much as finding people who had ever known anything in the first place. Both Mrs. Oliver and, very uncharacteristically, Poirot, were unbelievably vague about dates and sequences of events, and even sometimes about names—so much so that I had a hard time figuring out what was supposed to have happened to who, and when.
There was also Desmond Burton-Cox’s total dismissal of his mother who, although she wasn’t his birth mother, adopted him as a baby. I really don’t buy into Christie’s idea that adopted children feel and think so differently from their adoptive parents that they don’t truly love them, unless that love is inspired by gratitude. I shouldn’t let this get me riled up, since I already knew that in Christie’s world, adoptions are always bad news, but for some reason it particularly annoyed me here.
I suppose the main problem I had with this book is that there was no sense of urgency about it. The deaths were in the past, and there wasn’t really any question of further danger to anyone investigating the crime, or to anyone else involved with the case. The only reason for the investigation was curiosity, and I found I didn’t much care what the solution was. Even when it was revealed, it just wasn’t very interesting to me.
All this isn’t to say that Elephants Can Remember is a bad book, because it isn’t. Ariadne Oliver is always entertaining, and the writing was good. I might even have liked this more if I hadn’t just read so many Christies that, in my opinion, are much, much better.
Pages read: 13,627
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, Agatha Christie, Anything Agatha Challenge, Ariadne Oliver, Poirot
March 31, 2008 at 12:43 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Mystery and Suspense
44. The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie (Mystery) 352 p.
Like Sparkling Cyanide, The Mystery of the Blue Train is a novel-length adaptation of a previously published short story. The Plymouth Express, which first appeared in 1923, tells of the murder of an American millionaire’s daughter on a train. The novel, although it has a more complex plot and deeper characterization, follows essentially the same lines as the short story.
Ruth Ketteridge, the spoiled, egocentric daughter of a very rich man, is found strangled in her compartment on the Blue Train, which carries wealthy passengers escaping a London winter for the warmth and sun of the Riviera. There are no shortage of possible murderers, and the victim’s estranged husband and her lover both come in for their share of suspicion. There is also the matter of some missing rubies, a gift from Ruth’s father and worth half a million pounds. Poirot, who was also a passenger on the Blue Train, begins to investigate, and soon turns up all manner of complications.
I’m very familiar with the story of The Plymouth Express, and I can’t say it’s ever been one of my favourites. Actually, I’m not a huge fan of the Poirot short stories in general—they’re fun as puzzles, but they lack the engaging personalities who form a great part of the charm of Christie’s novels, and the mysteries are rarely as fully developed as they ideally ought to be. The Mystery of the Blue Train has neither of these drawbacks.
The protagonist of the story is Katherine Grey, a young woman who, after a decade as a companion to a difficult elderly lady, has just been left a small fortune in her will. She travels by the Blue Train to the Riviera, and falls into conversation with Ruth Ketteridge. After the murder, meets Poirot and becomes further embroiled in the case.
Although the story is told in the third person, it mostly follows Katherine, and the book is the better for it. She’s very sympathetic, possessing both intelligence and a sense of humour. We also get to see a lot of Poirot, and he’s at his twinkly-eyed best.
This was actually a re-read for me, but as I’d only read the book once, and that long enough ago that I had no real memory of the plot, I thought it would be a great pick for the Anything Agatha Challenge, and it certainly was. I remembered liking the story, and my memory was accurate, for once; The Mystery of the Blue train is definitely one of Christie’s better novels. It didn’t matter at all that I knew the solution from the beginning (especially since I doubt I would have figured it out for myself!)
Pages read: 12,336
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, Agatha Christie, Anything Agatha Challenge, Poirot
March 30, 2008 at 6:14 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Fiction and Literature, Mystery and Suspense, World Literature
42. Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie (Mystery) 272 p.
This is my first read for the Anything Agatha Challenge, and the first of the six Christie detective novels I’ve never read. Unfortunately, although it’s true this book was new to me, the story wasn’t, since I’d already seen A&E’s 2-hour version. Still, even though I remembered how the murder was committed, I didn’t remember any of the surrounding details.
Murder in Mesopotamia is narrated by Amy Leatheran, a trained hospital nurse. Through a series of events, she finds herself at a dig in Iraq, taking care of Mrs. Leidner, the charming and beautiful wife of a prominent archaeologist. Mrs. Leidner is very nervous and jumpy, and although no one takes her fears very seriously, it soon seems they were justified: Mrs. Leidner is murdered. Local police welcome the help of Hercule Poirot, passing through on his way to Baghdad.
The case is an interesting one, and Nurse Leatheran is an engaging narrator. Another character, Dr. Reilly, describes her writing style as “vigorous, individual and entirely apposite,” and it’s true. Christie also takes the opportunity to make little jokes with her fans, as Miss Leatheran makes observations about Poirot that are funny if you know the truth about him. I also liked the little details of her reactions to archaeology, and her comments about some of the other characters.
I think the real test of quality for any mystery novel is the re-read. Of course, it’s true to a degree for pretty much every book, but more so in the mystery genre. I would never count any mystery novel as a success unless I can fully enjoy it even when I already know the solution. Murder in Mesopotamia passes that test, perhaps not with flying colours, but well enough that I’ll count it among some of my favourite Poirot novels.
Pages read: 11,696
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, Agatha Christie, Anything Agatha Challenge, Poirot, What's in a Name?
