Classic English Mystery. The last novel by Agatha Christie, Postern of Fate, was such a mess that one morning in the early 1990s waiting for a ride to the since re-named Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, I put it, unfinished, on an end table in the lobby of an annex of the Grand Hotel in Taipei. And just left it. I hope a Chinese learner of English did not blame herself when she found it as incomprehensible as I did. That experience was so off-putting that I did not read another novel of hers for about 30 years. Hey, my grudges make me who I am.
Hallowe’en Party – Agatha Christie
I swore off Dame Agatha’s novels for some 30 years until circumstances dropped this full-length mystery into my lap. Who am I to argue with a fate when it randomly sends my way the 32nd Hercule Poirot mystery?
And even though this novel suffers repetition problems, it remains readable, pleasant, understandable and intriguing. Indeed, Poirot still persists in wearing patent leather shoes that are too tight and inappropriate for sauntering about in a village. Familiarity in a series character is comforting.
Another attraction is the Christie gets positively trippy when she has Poirot become entranced in an aesthetic experience in a quarry garden. Indeed, her descriptions of semi-wild gardens, one in Ireland and one in the fictional village, make the reader more determined to make something of their little acre come the spring.
Anyway, the story, you no doubt wonder. Mrs Drake throws a children's party for Halloween which is also attended by the well-known mystery author Ariadne Oliver. During the evening of festivities and games, thirteen-year-old Joyce Reynolds declares that she saw a murder committed. No one, not a contemporary, not an adult, believes her. When little Joyce is found drowned in a basin full of water and apples, Mrs. Oliver appeals to Poirot for this assistance.
As usual in the cozy mystery – and one of the reasons I’m uneasy with them - I felt a certain discomfort at the reaction of the characters who are respond it as if it were normal to find a corpus in the library, or in this case, a child brutally drowned in a basin of water. Granted, there was some compassion expressed by one character but other characters took malicious pleasure in belittling Joyce, the victim.
And then – another kid - is murdered. Wow. Christie really testing her readers, though I’m not sure if that is typical since I’ve not read Christie widely.
Another theme that Christie deals with is that of prejudice against foreigners, in particular Olga, an au pair from Eastern Europe, openly considered a gold-digger by the inhabitants of the country who, convinced of her bad faith, do not worry in the least about her fate when the girl mysteriously disappears.
Christie was a popular writer not only due to her characters and surprises but also her simple, homey style. The reader easily takes in the action and she weaves that narrative enchantment that makes the reader want to turn pages until the reveal. Christie has a power that beguiles the reader. Though late in her writing career in 1969, she was still capable of surprising us readers with those prestidigitator tricks of which she is a master, crafting a logical plot that leads to a reasonable solution.
Click on the title to go to the review.
Prize Winning Classic: The Moviegoer – Walker Percy
Classic Novella: Old Man – William Faulkner
Classic Epistolary Novel: Augustus – John Williams
Classic Comic Novel: Thank you, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
Classic Short Stories: New York Stories – John O’Hara
Classic Air Pilot Memoir: Wind, Sand, and Stars - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Classic Set in the Big Apple: Manhattan Transfer – John Dos Passos
Classic 19th Century Novel: Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite – Anthony Trollope
Classic Police Procedural: Wolf to Slaughter – Ruth Rendell
Classic War Memoir: Flight to Arras - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Classic American Mystery: Might as Well Be Dead - Rex Stout
Classic Courtroom Drama: A Woman Named Anne – Henry Cecil
Classic Abandoned: Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
Classic Set in France: Maigret’s Patience – Georges Simenon
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