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A renowned but retired British actor throws a dinner party at his country home, where the village vicar unexpectedly drops dead. Was it ... murder?! No one seems to think so except the actor, his friend Satterthwaite ("A dried-up little pipkin of a man"), and the actor's erstwhile young lover, Miss
But when one of the other guests at that party, a nerve doctor named Strange, throws his own dinner party with more or less the same guest list back in London some months later, another death occurs and suddenly no one is pooh-poohing anything, least of all Poirot.
Another twisty plot from the queen of twisty plots, as the spotlight of suspicion falls plausibly on one after another of the characters. Poirot's part is seemingly minor, except that he is the one in the end who solves the seemingly unsolvable mystery. Additional kudos to Dame Agatha for structuring a mystery involving denizens of the theater scene as a play: Act One, the first murder; Act Two, the second murder and the amateur investigation; Act Three, the unmasking of the murderer. Or, as she says in the mock Production Notes at the beginning, Illumination by Hercule Poirot. Bravo!
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Hermione Lytton Gore (Egg to you, if you please). Even Hercule Poirot, who was a guest at the party, pooh-poohs the idea.But when one of the other guests at that party, a nerve doctor named Strange, throws his own dinner party with more or less the same guest list back in London some months later, another death occurs and suddenly no one is pooh-poohing anything, least of all Poirot.
Another twisty plot from the queen of twisty plots, as the spotlight of suspicion falls plausibly on one after another of the characters. Poirot's part is seemingly minor, except that he is the one in the end who solves the seemingly unsolvable mystery. Additional kudos to Dame Agatha for structuring a mystery involving denizens of the theater scene as a play: Act One, the first murder; Act Two, the second murder and the amateur investigation; Act Three, the unmasking of the murderer. Or, as she says in the mock Production Notes at the beginning, Illumination by Hercule Poirot. Bravo!
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Description
Fiction. Mystery. Historical Fiction. HTML: In Agatha Christie's classic, Three Act Tragedy, the normally unflappable Hercule Poirot faces his most baffling investigation: the seemingly motiveless murder of the thirteenth guest at dinner party, who choked to death on a cocktail containing not a trace of poison. Sir Charles Cartwright should have known better than to allow thirteen guests to sit down for dinner. For at the end of the evening one of them is deadâ??choked by a cocktail that contained no trace of poison. Predictable, says Hercule Poirot, the great detective. But entirely unpredictable is that he can find absolutely no motive for murder....
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Original language
English
Original publication date
1934-06-01