Agatha Christie

Review: Towards Zero

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Towards Zero, (Superintendent Battle Number 5), Agatha Christie. William Morrow (ISBN: 9780062073549) 2010 (first published in 1944).

Summary: A house party at Lady Tressilian’s is decidedly awkward when her ward invites both his former and current wives.

Agatha Christie only wrote five mysteries featuring Superintendent Battle, and this was the last. That’s regrettable for me, because this stood out among her best, even though Battle doesn’t really come into the plot until the latter half of the book.

Talk about awkward situations. Lady Tressilian’s ward, Neville Strange, a middling tennis pro, wants to come for a visit at a time when Audrey, his former wife had already planned a visit. Not only that, he wants to come with his new wife, Kay, a stunning beauty. Sensibly, Lady Tressilian is reluctant to accede, especially when it isn’t clear whose idea this was. Audrey says she doesn’t have a problem. No one seems to be thinking about Lady Tressilian, whose health confines her to her bed. In the end, she agrees.

A few other houseguests add to the awkwardness. Thomas Royde, a friend of (and quietly still enamored with) Audrey, has just returned from an overseas assignment. Ted Latimer, who had been interested in Kay, but was also a friend of Neville’s is staying at a resort across the bay as is Mr. Treves, a solicitor and friend of Lady Tressilian.

Awkward is an understatement. It feels like a powderkeg, and were it not for the offices of Mary Aldin, a spinster who runs the household, it might come completely unglued. And then there are two deaths.

The first comes after Treves tells a story of a child murderer with a distinctive physical mark. That night, when he returns to his hotel, the lift is out of service, and he must walk up several flights of steps. He is found dead the next morning. The ruling was that he died of natural causes, due to his weak heart. Except, the hotel confirms that the lift was in good working order. Someone seems to have put a sign up just for Treves.

Then Neville and Lady Tressilian have a row and he storms off to purportedly visit Latimer. Later on, Lady Tressilian is found dead, brutally battered about the head. The evidence points both toward Neville, who has a good alibi, and Audrey, who doesn’t. Battle, who has been on holiday, comes in at this point to solve the murder. Ultimately a man who had attempted suicide and prevents another offers a critical piece of help enabling Battle to confront the real murderer.

The title reflects a conviction of Battle’s. Murder is the “zero hour.” Battle observes that often plots begin with a murder when, in fact, they come at the end of events counting down “towards zero.” As he investigates, he wants to get inside that process. And Christie offers just the right amount of red herrings to make you suspect most of the surviving characters at some point. A well-plotted and conceived mystery, indeed!

Review: One, Two Buckle My Shoe

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Cover image of "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" by Agatha Christie

One, Two, Buckle my Shoe (Hercule Poirot Number 23), Agatha Christie. William Morrow Paperbacks (ISBN: 9780062073778) 2011 (originally published 1940).

Summary: Poirot seeks the murderer of his dentist, found dead not two hours after Poirot visited him.

Like many of us, Hercule Poirot does not like going to the dentist. But his appointment with Dr. Morley goes off uneventfully. Except for complaining of the unexpected absence of Miss Nevill, his assistant, their conversation, as much as was possible, was pleasant. Two hours later, Poirot learn Morley has died, in what was an apparent suicide.

But Poirot is not so sure. Even after the inquest, when evidence came out that his last patient, a Greek man named Amberiotis, died in his hotel room of an overdose of the painkiller Morley used. The authorities believed that Morley killed himself for his mistake. But Poirot, having interacted with him, and talked with others who knew him, isn’t so sure.

For one thing, the telegram calling Miss Nevill away was a decoy. There were several other patients, including successful financier Alistair Blunt, former actress Mabelle Sainsbury Seale (who Poirot briefly encountered), and Amberiotis. Also, an American, Howard Raikes came, and not wanting to wait, left. One other, who did not have an appointment, also came. Frank Carter was Miss Nevill’s fiancé, and not approved of by Dr. Morley. He had come to plead his case with the doctor, including the new job he’d just gotten. Finally, Dr. Reilly, his partner, appears to have a drinking problem, and his practice is not going well.

More strange things happen. For one, Mabelle Sainsbury Seale disappears. A month later, police find a body in the lodgings of a Mrs. Albert Chapman. Mabelle’s clothing is found on the body, but dental records reveal her to be Mrs. Chapman. Both had been patients of Dr. Morley. Then Blunt, who had just survived one assassination attempt where Frank Carter was present, invites Poirot to his estate, to persuade Poirot to search for the missing Mabelle. While they are talking, a shot is fired, but misses Blunt. The gun, a match for the pistol by which Morley died, is at Carter’s feet. Carter’s “job,” as it turns out was as a gardener at the estate.

Things are not looking good for Carter, who is hardly of the most exemplary character. But Poirot comes to think that a trap has been laid, not only for the hapless Carter, but for himself. Carter professes innocence to both crimes, saying he came upon Morley after he was shot. The key, Poirot believes, is finding the “missing Mabelle.”

The title rhyme carries through the titles for each chapter. Poirot, as always, thinks as much as he “detects” and it is a reference to a Psalm that puts him on the trail of the killer. This was Christie at the height of her powers in 1940 in a well-paced mystery with a number of “red herrings.”

Review: Taken at the Flood

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Cover image of "Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie

Taken at the Flood, Agatha Christie. HarperCollins (ISBN: 9780062073846), 2011 (originally published in 1948).

Summary: A young widow and her brother inherit a family fortune, stirring family resentments until a mysterious figure threatens blackmail and is found dead.

Gordon Cloade was the benefactor of the Cloade family. During the war, he meets a young widow, Rosaleen Underhay on a ship, and marries her. Two days after they arrive in England, all but Rosaleen and her brother David, who has joined the household, are killed in a bombing raid. Cloade had not had time to change his will to provide for both wife and family. This meant that Rosaleen, for the duration of her life inherited the income from the capital of Cloade’s life, depriving the family of needed support.

But all may not be as it seems with Rosaleen. Her first marriage had been an unhappy one. Her husband separated and then was reported dead. But a conversation where a Major Porter was overheard by Poirot, while sheltering in a club from a bombing raid, suggests that Underhay never died, but was abroad under the name of Enoch Arden, a reference to a Lord Tennyson poem about one thought dead who was not.

Christie introduces us to the various Cloades, in various states of insolvency. Jeremy, the lawyer, has been pilfering funds, and a reckoning approaches. Lionel is a physician, and has become a morphine addict, to the detriment of his finances. Rowley has been able to eke by as a farmer but had hoped for more, particularly as he anticipates marrying the village girl, Lynn Marchmont, who has returned to live with her mother after Lynn’s service as a WREN during the war.

Needless to say, many wish Rosaleen dead, or at least her claim on the Cloade fortune disproven. Then a mysterious figure shows up in town, identifying himself to David, Rosaleen’s brother, as Enoch Arden, and threatening blackmail. When Arden is found dead, Rowley, acting in the family’s interests asks Poirot to confirm the identity of the man named Arden. He calls on Porter, who testifies at the inquest that he knew Underhay and that the dead man was Underhay, despite Rosaleen’s denials. David, as prime suspect is arrested.

There’s a tangled web that Poirot has to unravel before all becomes clear. Two more die along the way. Poirot will say one is accidental, one is a suicide, and one is murder. But which is which and how are they all connected is for Poirot to discover, as he talks to people and learns things, while those around him underestimate his abilities.

I thought this a cleverly written mystery that also offered an instructive tale on the follies of depending on the wealth of a benefactor–from family or otherwise. Along the way, there is a diverting subplot as Lynn, finding Rowley somewhat dull after her war adventures, is drawn by the allure of the roguish David. I’m not sure I like Christie’s use of partner violence in this plot. As a mystery, I think this one of her better efforts, written at the height of her powers in 1948.

Review: Passenger to Frankfurt

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Passenger to Frankfurt, Agatha Christie. William Morrow Paperbacks (ISBN: 9780062094452), 2012 (Originally published in 1970).

Summary: Sir Stafford Nye helps a woman in the Frankfurt airport by giving her his cloak, passport, and boarding ticket to England and finds himself caught up in a global plot.

Sir Stafford Nye is a middle aged diplomat on his way home from Malaya when approached by a woman claiming that the re-routing of her flight jeopardizes her life, and asks that Nye help her by giving her his cloak, passport and boarding ticket. To make it all seem plausible, she says she will drug his beer while he leaves behind the cloak with passport and boarding ticket to step away for a moment. When he returns, they are gone, he drinks his beer and is eventually wakened, holding the stuffed Panda he had purchased for his niece, Sybil. Panda will return!

He treats it as a strange embarrassment until a colleague in security tells him he saved Mary Ann, an important agent who is variously known as Daphne Theodofanous and Countess Renata Zerkowski. When his passport is returned, he places a “personal” and ends up meeting her at the opera Siegfried, where she leaves a program with an important clue. Before he knows it, he is involved with her in an espionage plot designed to thwart the rise of a fascist organization sowing mayhem in the world led by a child purportedly sired by Hitler, but masterminded by an obese Bavarian countess.

Throughout, Nye tries to understand what is his part. He also learns rule number one in espionage–trust no one. Indeed, a traitor has infiltrated the intelligence organization directing “Mary Ann’s” efforts. At times, we wonder if Mary Ann is to be trusted.

Indeed, it was puzzling to me what role Nye plays beyond his initial unusual act of trust, other than his connection to his Aunt Mathilda who actually seems to have more to do with the denouement than Nye.

It’s an odd story, implausible at a number of points. The redeeming element is the mysterious Mary Ann. This was written when Christie had turned eighty and was the last of her spy stories. Perhaps the other element of the story is Christie’s prescient appreciation of the compelling attraction of fascism. Few would have credited this in 1970, when the horrors of fascism were still fresh. That aspect of this work is, sadly, far more plausible fifty years later.

Review: Evil Under the Sun

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Evil Under the Sun (Hercule Poirot #24), Agatha Christie. New York: Harper Collins, 2011 (originally published in 1941).

Summary: While Poirot is vacationing in Devon, Arlena Marshall, an actress who attracts men like moths to the flame, is found dead of strangulation on an isolated beach.

Poirot is vacationing at a highly rated summer resort in Devon, accessed by a causeway submerged at high tide. Some of the other guests enjoying the sun and the sea include Horace Blatt, a big talking business type, somewhat shady, Major Barry, a retired officer, Carrie Gardner, a gabby woman and Odell, her longsuffering husband, Reverend Stephen Lane, a rather severe clergyman, who we learned had suffered a breakdown in the recent past due to an obsession with evil, Emily Brewster, an athletic single woman, and the Redferns–Patrick, a trim, attractive man, and his wife Christine, somewhat owlish, pale, a former school teacher who is devoted to her husband. Then there is Arlene Marshall, a sexy actress who attracts men as moths are attracted to a flame, her reserved husband Kenneth, and Kenneth’s daughter Linda, the offspring of a deceased wife once tried and acquitted for murder. Rounding out the ensemble is Rosamund Darnley, a fashion designer and one time love of Kenneth’s

Patrick Redfern is one who is drawn to Arlene, flirting and meeting in secluded locations with her. It turns out he had met her several months before and it is no coincidence that they are at this resort together. Despite Christine’s evident discomfort and displeasure, they keep carrying on. Poirot notes this and fears evil.

One morning, Poirot finds Arlena Marshall up early, taking a boat out on her own. He helps her get off, with her asking him not to say anything about her whereabouts, and shortly after encounters Patrick, who was plainly expecting to meet someone and is frustrated. He waits about for sometime and finally persuades Emily Brewster to go rowing. They head to a secluded beach, Pixy Cove, where they spot a woman sunbathing that looks like it is Arlene. Patrick goes to investigate and, to his horror, finds her dead. He stays with the body, sending Emily to fetch the authorities.

Local Inspector Colgate asks Poirot the help in the investigation. It appears that all the island occupants have alibis, even Kenneth, the husband, and Patrick, the lover. Kenneth was both heard by a maid and seen by Rosamond typing letters during the time the murder could have occurred. Patrick was either with Poirot or Emily Brewster until the body was found. A number of others could be suspects–Christine, the jealous wife, Linda, the resentful step-daughter, Lane, the overwrought clergyman obsessed with evil, Blatt, whose suspicious dealings may be connect with drugs found in the cave at Pixy Cove, and Rosamond, Kenneth’s former love.

But amid the various accounts, there are “pieces to the puzzle,” as Poirot explains it that remain to be fitted into the picture of what happened that morning. Emily described nearly being hit by an empty bottle thrown from a hotel window. A maid heard someone running a bath before noon, that no one claims to have taken. An in a cave at Pixy Cove, Poirot smells a scent worn by only two women–the deceased and Rosamond Darnley.

As in other Poirots, these “pieces,” an enquiry about other strangling deaths in the vicinity, and a picnic outing lead Poirot, after much pondering, to expose the murderer, and nearly be strangled himself! In the denouement, we discover some who are far more evil than they appeared, and others more noble than one would have thought. And we discover every piece matters in this well-crafted mystery.

Review: A Caribbean Mystery

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A Caribbean Mystery (Miss Marple #9), Agatha Christie. New York, Morrow, 2022 (originally published in 1964).

Summary: A Caribbean holiday after an illness is just what the doctor ordered for Miss Marple, who helps solve a string of murders at a resort.

Miss Marple is recovering from an illness and her nephew Raymond sends her on a Caribbean holiday. Little did he realize how rejuvenating it would be as Miss Marple employs her polite nosiness and the insistence that only an elderly spinster can exercise, to solve a string of murders.

It all begins with Major Palgrave’s interminable and repeating stories. He begins to tell her one of a repeat murderer who had remained unapprehended. He was on the point of showing her a picture when he looks up, puts his wallet away and hastily changes the subject. When he is found dead of an apparent stroke the next morning, Miss Marple has her suspicions. It had been noised about that he had high blood pressure and a bottle of medications was found among his effects.

Except in the course of talking with different members of the party staying at the resort, run by a young couple, the Kendals, Victoria, a housemaid, claims not to have previously seen the medicine. That evening, she’s found dead of knife wounds by Molly Kendal, who has been acting more and more erratic, experiencing lapses of memory and agitation, and had been seen carrying a kitchen knife. Tim attributes her agitation to a family history She’s understandably quite upset, having found the murdered girl and even wondering if, in a fit of madness, whether she is the murderer. She is comforted by Miss Marple, who has her doubts.

Miss Marple’s fears are growing. There are other strange events going on, including finding rich old Mr. Raffiel’s assistant Jackson looking through his papers, and later through Molly Kendal’s cosmetics. People aren’t what they seem. The Hillingdon’s, a seeming perfect couple are sleeping separately, while he is caught up in an affair with “Lucky” Dyson, wife of nature lover Greg Dyson Meanwhile, Miss Marple’s suspicions about Palgrave’s death result in his exhumation and a finding that he was poisoned.

There is one more murder yet to occur and one narrowly prevented. It’s a case of a murderer who overlooks a couple of gossipy old women, Miss Marple and Miss Prescott, Canon Prescott’s sister, and the handicapped Mr. Raffiel. Appearing frail, among the “uglies,” they mobilize action at the right time to save a life and capture a murderer!

How can one not love Miss Marple! And how can one not be amazed at Agatha Christie who spins the perfect Caribbean holiday murder mystery, forty-four years after her first mystery in 1920. In this one, she was still at the top of her game as was her main character, a quietly gossipy busybody who knits her way to another crime solved!

Review: The Mystery of the Blue Train

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The Mystery of the Blue Train (Hercule Poirot #6), Agatha Christie. New York: William Morrow, 2005 (originally published in 1928).

Summary: A rich heiress carrying a rare ruby is murdered on the fashionable overnight train to the French Riviera on which retired detective Hercule Poirot happens to be riding.

Agatha Christie’s most well-known train mystery is Murder on the Orient Express (1934). This was preceded by a lesser-known train mystery, The Mystery of the Blue Train, published six years earlier. It wasn’t one of her favorites and one she struggled to write. But I thought it contained some interesting plot twists and a surprise ending that I wasn’t looking for.

The plot revolves around the murder of Ruth Kettering, daughter of American tycoon, Rufus Van Aldin. Just before departing for a trip to the Riviera on the Blue Train, a luxury, overnight train through France, she agrees to her father’s counsel to divorce her philandering husband, Derek Kettering, whose most recent “bit of stuff” is an opportunistic dancer, Mirelle. He also gives her the fabulous gift of a rare ruby, with a history of murder attached to it. Van Aldin tries to buy Derek off, which he refuses, even though he faces mounting debts with no income besides Ruth’s. The only way he will get anything from her is if she dies. He also knows Ruth has resumed an affair with the Comte de la Roche, who is a rogue and a swindler who thusfar has escaped the reach of the law.

Ruth is accompanied by her new maid, Ada Mason, who after her death, tells authorities that Ruth asked her to leave at Paris and stay at the Ritz. Katherine Grey is a single woman who has been an elder companion, whose service meant so much that she was left a sizable sum by the woman she cared for. She has decided that there are things to see and experience that are now possible. She has been invited to stay with her cousin, the Viscountess Tamplin and her daughter, who also hope to benefit from Katherine’s new found wealth. And Poirot, retired and seeking to enjoy the world, is also on the train, talks wisely to Katherine, who thinks detective stories are just something fictional people are part of. It turns out she will end up far more involved than she could have imagined. Poirot agrees to assist, as well as to work for Van Aldin, and his quiet, war veteran assistant, Major Knighton.

The case revolves around the time between when Ada left Ruth in Paris and who the tall male was seen entering and leaving Ruth’s compartment before the train passed through Lyons. Initial suspicions center around Ruth’s love, the Comte de la Roche, in league with a jewel dealer. Was this just a jewelry theft gone bad or something more? Yet Poirot is not so sure and suspicions turn to Derek. A cigarette case found in the compartment is thought to be his. Then Mirelle, who Derek has decided to ditch in his interest in Katherine, goes to Poirot and tells him that she saw Derek leave Ruth’s compartment at about the time the murder was purported to occur. Katherine also saw a man around Ruth’s compartment and possibly enter it.

One other detail troubles Poirot. Why did Ruth’s murderer not only strangle her but also strike her face with a disfiguring blow. Could Derek have done that? Katherine, who is now being pursued by both Derek and Major Knighton is drawn into Poirot’s counsels. At the risk of looking “past it” with Van Aldin, Poirot keeps looking, and particularly for a shadowy figure known as the Marquis.

As I mentioned, I wasn’t expecting the ending, which made this all the more fun. Poirot and Katherine match each other in very different ways in their own self-possession. I would have liked to see them together again–and perhaps Poirot would have as well–but she makes a different choice that, depending on your perspective, may seem “safe” or alternatively reflect a mature self-understanding. I think the latter and found her one of the most interesting of Christie’s characters, in her understated way.

Review: The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side

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The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side, Agatha Christie (Miss Marple #9). New York: HarperCollins, 2011, originally published 1962.

Summary: A harmless busybody dies of a poisoned drink intended for a famous actress, the beginning of further threats, and murders that follow.

Marina Gregg, a celebrated but temperamental actress and her husband, Jason Rudd have re-habilitated a Victorian mansion once owned by a friend of Miss Marple, Dolly Bantry. They host a reception for distinguished guests and neighbors. Heather Badcock, a local do-gooder and busybody, who earlier had rendered assistance when Miss Marple had fallen by her house, eagerly greets the actress and tells the story of how she had met her years earlier, rising from her sickbed to get the actress’s autograph.

Subsequently she is jostled, spills her drink, and Marina Gregg offers hers. Minutes later Heather Badcock is dead, poisoned by an overdose of a tranquilizer used by everyone connected with the house, it seems. It dawns on both that the poison was meant for Marina. Subsequently, a cup of coffee intended for Marina is laced with arsenic. Then a secretary dies of an atomizer filled with cyanide as does a dress designer. The question is how the killer who is threatening Marina is gaining access.

And Miss Marple? Out of caution for her age, she has an overly-protective live in attendant, who she has to elude. Her doctor thinks she needs to do some “unraveling.” This case allows her that opportunity as her adopted “nephew,” Chief Inspector Craddock, seeks her perspective. As usual, she pays close attention to details–a stained dress and the “help” who saw the accident, the stories in the celebrity gossip magazines and the look on Marina’s face as she talked to Mrs. Badcock, from which the book takes its title, the look on Lady Shalott’s face when she saw the “mirror crack’d from side to side.” What was this look, and what caused it?

This was a delightful read and as always, it is fun to admire Miss Marple’s “spunk.” The ending surprised me, adding to the satisfaction. Side characters like Dolly Bantry, Dr. Haycock, and even Cherry, the housekeeper add to the pleasure. Agatha even sneaks in some commentary on the new “developments” and their lack of personality. No wonder they called Christie “the Queen of Mystery.”

Review: The Murder on the Links

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the murder on the links

The Murder on the Links (Hercule Poirot #2), Agatha Christie. New York Harper Collins, 2011 (first published in 1923).

Summary: A man who writes Poirot from the north of France of his life being in danger is found dead by Poirot under circumstances similar to another murder many years earlier that is key to Poirot unraveling the case.

For golfing fans, I hate to disappoint you, but apart from a murder taking place in a grave dug where a bunker for a golf course was to be sited, there is little about golf in this mystery. What you will find here is Agatha Christie at the height of her powers in one of her early Poirots, creating an intricate plot taking us in a succession of turns and suspects before the revelation of the true murderer.

I won’t take you on all the plot turns but will lay out enough to hopefully entice you to read one of Christie’s best. Hercule Poirot is in England with his companion, Arthur Hastings, when he receives a letter from the north of France from millionaire Paul Renaud, speaking of his life in danger, and requesting Poirot’s help. Poirot and Hastings immediately depart, only to arrive with the police on scene, investigating the murder of Monsieur Renaud. Madame Renaud had been found tightly bound by two strangers who questioned Monsieur Renaud and then took him out. His body was found in a newly dug grave stabbed in the back with a letter opener given to Madame Renaud by her son Jack, who had been sent to sail to South America.

Part of the fun in this story is the rivalry between Poirot and Giraud, the Sureté detective who crawls around everywhere but dismisses the piece of led pipe near the body, the dismissal of Jack to South America and the chauffeur, leaving only three female servants and an old gardener, a door left open, a piece of paper that was part of check with the name “Duveen.” Who was the mysterious visitor in Renaud’s study the evening before his death? Why payments of 200,000 francs from him into Madame Daubreuil’s account, a neighbor who frequently visited? Why were their footprints matching the gardener’s boots in one bed, while the other had none?

While Giraud keeps investigating, Poirot, troubled with similarities to a murder involving a Madame Beroldy, goes to Paris. Meanwhile, a young woman, “Cinderella” who Hastings previously met runs into him, hear’s the story of the murder and wants to see the scene. Afterward, the murder weapon goes missing, only to turn up in the back of a second corpse, a tramp dressed in nice clothes that in fact had died long before the weapon was thrust into him.

Then we learn that Jack had actually been in town the night of the murder. Jack was in love with Marthe Daubreuil, Madame Daubreuil’s daughter. We also learn that Jack’s father had changed his will, cutting Jack out because he insisted in his love affair, even though he had a girl he dumped, the twin sister of “Cinderella,” Dulcie Duveen, the woman who had been in Renaud’s study the night he was murdered.

As you can see, there are a whole host of suspects. Giraud fixes on Jack Renaud, who all but admits to the crime. Yet Poirot is not so sure. Not all is as it seems, but this plot has more twists and turns before the denouement, including a period where Hastings, for love, works against Poirot. This is one you want to read closely, paying attention to the clues, following the turns, trying to spot the red herrings. This is great, good fun–Christie at her best!

Review: Elephants Can Remember

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elephants can remember

Elephants Can Remember (Hercule Poirot #37), Agatha Christie. New York: Harper Collins, 2011 (first published 1972).

Summary: Poirot and crime writer Ariadne Oliver team up at the request of a mother and young couple, to learn the truth about an unexplained double suicide many years earlier.

Celia Ravenscroft and Desmond Burton-Cox want to marry. Desmond’s mother by adoption, looking for cause to oppose it, seeks out the help of crime writer Ariadne Oliver, who is Celia’s godmother. Celia’s parents died years ago in what authorities determined to be a suicide pact. Mrs. Burton-Cox want to know who killed who, and if there is a streak of mental instability that Celia might inherit. Celia and Desmond wish the truth as well.

Oliver enlists her old friend Poirot, and the two of them go in search of “the elephants,” those who remember crucial facts that might bring to light what truly happened, and incidentally, why Mrs. Burton-Cox is really so bent on discouraging the marriage. Along the way, we learn of Mrs. Ravenscroft’s deranged identical twin sister, who died by falling from the same cliffs where the Ravenscrofts took their lives three weeks later. Poirot wonders about the exceptional number of wigs worn by Mrs Ravenscroft, despite a healthy head of hair. What did French au pair know, who was staying at the time of their deaths? Finally, we wonder about the affectionate dog that inexplicably bit.

Reading the story, I was curious how much of Agatha Christie is written into the character of Ariadne Oliver. It was fun to envision Agatha going about with Poirot crime solving. I have to admit that the solution was fairly apparent before the denouement. What I liked about this story was the diverse set of characters Christie offers us: the somewhat eccentric Ariadne Oliver, the strong-willed Celia, the determined Desmond, the unlikable Mrs. Burton-Cox, and the au pair torn by love and the promise to keep a secret. We also encounter an older Poirot, one who sits and thinks even more. We wonder, as does Ariadne at one point, whether he still has his edge. As always, we discover his edge is to listen, to observe, to wait, and to think, drawing on his insights into human nature, until the pieces fall in place.

I didn’t think this was Christie at her best. She left too many clues, too few red herrings. Yet I found the story a pleasant diversion, with a great mix of characters and good pacing. This was published less than four years before her death. Some have speculated that she was struggling with the onset of some form of dementia when she wrote Elephants Can Remember. Perhaps the title was a valiant attempt to say “I’ve still got what it takes!” She was in her early 80’s when she wrote this–and still capable of writing circles around younger writers!