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Fiction. Mystery. Historical Fiction. HTML: In Agatha Christie's classic, Five Little Pigs, beloved detective Hercule Poirot races to solve a case from out of the past. Beautiful Caroline Crale was convicted of poisoning her husband, but just like the nursery rhyme, there were five other "little pigs" who could have done it: Philip Blake (the stockbroker), who went to market; Meredith Blake (the amateur herbalist), who stayed at home; Elsa Greer (the three-time divorcée), who had her roast beef; Cecilia Williams (the devoted governess), who had none; and Angela Warren (the disfigured sister), who cried all the way home. Sixteen years later, Caroline's daughter is determined to prove her mother's innocence, and Poirot just can't get that nursery rhyme out of his mind.… (more)
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Pirot gathers the facts from the lawyers and the police that were involved in the case. He then interviews the five witnesses in order to get a sense of time and place. Of course each witness has their own slant on what actually happened, and Poirot must use his “little grey cells” to come up with the truth. In spectacular Agatha Christie style, the last chapter of the book finds Poirot gathering the witnesses together for his dramatic reveal.
Kudos to Miss Christie for keeping this book both fresh and interesting while we read about a murder from five different view points. I did solve the mystery, but I suggest that the author wanted us to work it out, to use our own ‘little grey cells” by simply meditating upon the testimony offered. An excellent read and one of my favorite Poirot stories yet.
Sixteen years ago, artist Amyas Crale was poisoned. His wife was arrested and convicted of murder. She wrote a letter to her young
Poirot has little work with. He starts by talking to the lawyers on both sides of the case. Then he interviews the people who were on the scene - the five little pigs of the English title. The first pig was a business man, friend of Mr. Crale. The second was his brother, a country gentleman type. The next was the Other Woman, a Lady Dittisham, who has never forgiven or forgotten. The fourth little pig was the governess. And the last was the younger sister of Mrs. Crale. She alone is convinced of Caroline Crale's innocence. Everyone else believes she was guilty. Crale always had women around, but this time it looked as though he meant to divorce his wife and marry his mistress. But he was murdered before he got the chance.
Poirot convinces each of the five to write an account of the days up to the murder. By reading this accounts, he believes he will be able to reconstruct the crime and determine who was responsible for the death of Amyas Crale.
CMB
It's not perfect, I found the characterisation of Philip Blake a bit flat, but I love all the little character details for Poirot, like when he tells himself off for thinking in nursery rhymes (again) and how he chooses to present himself to the five people present on the day of the murder.
Definitely worth a read.
We ae given an account of the facts from the point of view of each of the other suspects, and Poirot knits the incosistencies together to form a comprehensive
Hercule Poirot always has a soft spot for a young lady in distress or peril. In his previous appearance in EVIL UNDER THE SUN he had great admiration for the female murderer. In FIVE LITTLE PIGS he has great sympathy with Carla Crale's belief in her mother's innocence.
It is Poirot himself who names this case:
A jingle ran through Poirot’s head. He repressed it. He must not always be thinking of nursery rhymes. It seemed an obsession with him lately. And yet the jingle persisted. ‘This little pig went to market, this little pig stayed at home…’
The structure of FIVE LITTLE PIGS is deceptively simple. In Book I there are ten chapters. In the first five Poirot interviews the officials involved in the court cases to see what they remember and what their impression was of Caroline Crale's guilt. In the next five chapters he interviews the five people who were present when the murder happened.
In Book II each of the latter five gives Poirot a written narrative of events and their own opinion of whether Caroline Crale was guilty of murder.
Book III also has five chapters. Poirot brings the five people together with Carla Crale and her fiance. He asks a question each of those who gave him a narrative and then reconstructs what happened as he sees it, pointing out that one of those present has lied, and some of the others are mistaken in their interpretation of what they saw and heard at the time.
For readers it is a most satisfying book because you have the same opportunities as Hercule Poirot to reinterpret the evidence and to look for the flaws in the narratives. I must admit to at first following the red herring that Christie so temptingly laid across my path. I always had an alternative reconstruction lurking in the back of my mind though, and that proved to be the correct one.
This was the last novel of an especially prolific phase of Christie's work on Poirot. She published thirteen Poirot novels between 1935 and 1942 out of a total of eighteen novels in that period. By contrast, she published only two Poirot novels in the next eight years, indicating the possibility that she was experiencing some frustration with her most popular character. (see more at Wikipedia about the novel)
Style: The change in title totally obscures a
The framing device she uses here, solving a murder 16 years after the fact, is intriguing because so much of the trail has gone cold for Poirot. He must
In many ways this is a typical country house mystery. There is no doubt that Amyas Crale was poisoned. Other than Amyas and Caroline Crale, only the five living witnesses had access to the poison. If Caroline Crale didn't murder her husband, one of them must have done it. I thought I had the murder all figured out, only to discover that I had fallen for one of the red herrings that Christie so skillfully creates. Christie worked in a pharmacy during World War I, and she is at her best when she writes about poisons. Although this isn't as well known as several of Poirot's other cases, it's still a solid mystery and is characteristic of Christie's work.
I caught on to it that Caroline thought Angela had poisoned the beer, and was protecting her. I got that pretty much from the beginning, and as I read the narratives, it was confirmed. What I reconstructed was that on the morning of the murder Angela climbed into Meredith's
When Caroline realized that Angela had poisoned Amyas' beer, *I* thought that she had taken the beer bottle and somehow disposed of it, then opened a fresh bottle, emptied it, and put it in place. This fits in with traces of poison being found in the glass but not the beer bottle. Caroline would have done this, because she knows that Miss Williams saw Angela tampering with the beer.
And of course, Angela would have done it--perhaps in an altered state of consciousness--because she was being sent off to school and severed from her sister, by Amyas.
The only loose end in my theory was the issue of Elsa's pullover, which I think Agatha Christie had not thought through clearly. Elsa is not wearing the pullover in the painting, and we know from Amyas' "flight of parrots" comment that Elsa's blue and yellow outfit was important for the painting--no red pullover. Some people think Elsa went to get the pullover before she started to sit for Amyas, some that she went and got it afterward. Only Philip's narrative reports that she went up to the house to get a pullover twice, which of course doesn't make sense. I thought that this may have been an error on Philip's part, or he may have also been in on "covering up" for Angela--his love/hate relationship with Caroline led him to also feel protective of Angela as Caroline did, and so, all these years later, he purposely described Elsa going to the house twice, once--Poirot is supposed to suppose--to retrieve the bottle of poison and once to put it back. I assumed, as a person paying attention would, that Elsa could only have gotten away with going to the house for a pullover once.
It did occur to me that Amyas never intended to leave Caroline. That was a classic AC setup--Elsa could have created the situation out of thin air.
And then, of course, there is the way AC wanted things to be.
In an age without DNA databases, fingerprint scanners, and high-tech equipment, reopening a long closed case would be a daunting task for any detective. Hercule Poirot doesn’t see the Crale case that way. He sees this case as a challenge in to the psychology of murder and quickly begins to track down those involved. There are five very clear key players who were present at the time of the murder. Poirot enlists each of them to provide their side of the story through both interview and written narrative. What he finds are conflicting memories and motives associated with each person. Did Caroline Crale actually murder her husband or was it one of the five other people closest to him?
Chrsitie strikes again! I was so confident I knew the truth about the case this time. The style of writing in FIVE LITTLE PIGS was a mixture between Poirot interviewing the five eyewitnesses and them also each writing their own narrative about the events. This unique mixture let the reader see multiple points of view and spot differences between the retellings in an easy-to-read format. As usual, my favorite part of the story was when Poirot gathers everyone in the same room and reveals the truth behind the case and calls each character out on the lies they have been telling. I highly recommend this tale to anyone looking for an introduction to Agatha Christie and her famous detective, Hercule Poirot!
However there are men who love the artist's wife w/ devotion &
The wife does nothing, says nothing to defend herself..... a price/debt to pay? Her daughter, receiving a letter from her mother stating her innocence, hires M. Poirot to clear her mother's name......
Is it possible? Who really "done it"? I figured it out...... But it was a dull story told in first person narration verbally then in letters by the witnesses...... People who were basically detestable....