Poirot Investigates

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Disclamir

This is my second novel after animal farm. Generally, I prefer to stick with non-fiction and informative books when writing reviews as I find them easy to assess and evaluate their impact. Moreover, I generally prefer non-fiction books over fiction or stories. But after a long talk with one of my friends I decided to explore other genre and broaden my imagination.

So, I began my journey in unknown territory with the detective genre. It was difficult for me to read it from cover to back in a single stretch as it was a new kind of exercise for my brain. Nonetheless, it was worth it. I would love to explore other genres likewise and I hope that I will be able to read, enjoy and write reviews on them.

1. Introduction:

You pick up any book on crime stories and there is a high probability that 1 out of 5 books would be of Agatha Christie who is regarded as the Queen of Crimes. Such high praises of her work lit curiosity in my mind to start my journey in the fictional world with her book. So, I went to my local library and picked up the one which I assumed it will be comfortable to digest for me. And, there I found a compilation of short stories written by her on the cases solved by her heroic character, Hercules Poirot.

2. Central Theme:

The Queen of Crime is famous for writing enticing novels such as ABC murders, The murder in Oriental Express and many more titles. But this book was one of her compilation of short stories in which her detective character Hercules Poirot solves various cases. Each chapter is a stand-alone story and although I did not find any link between them, if there is any please ping me about it.

The best part about these stories is that unlike a novel on a single case that interlinks multifarious perspective and clues, it leaves few clues explicitly which becomes the key to solve the crime. Now, how is that even the best part, to begin with? For instance, there is a cup of black coffee in the murder scene, yet the dead body doesn’t have any stain on her teeth, it implies that the person did not drink coffee before her death. Such facts and others are for readers to deduce. I had the same struggle when I was reading the stories. After a few google searches, I came across an interesting blog which helped me to deal with this mystery. I would suggest you visit the site “She-Wolf” if you read this book.

3. Pros:

As already mentioned, what I hated earlier became the best part of the book. The stories provide you with sufficient material to deduce a reasonable scenario, but not enough to destroy the surprise ending. Two examples are the story of “The mystery of hunter’s lodge” and “The million-dollar bond robbery”. The deduction of Poirot was spot on and I was surprised how each of the cases turned out to be.

4. Cons:

If you are on the same boat with me, then poor vocab can derail your reading. Further, the French phrases in the stories obstructed my already overwhelmed mind. On referring to some forum I learnt that it is not important to understand every French phrase. But I was not satisfied with that. As a result, I would be stopping after reading 2 pages and then searching for the French phrases.

In one of the forum, it was stated that the French phrases are intentionally written by the author to add flavour to their real conversation for e.g. Poirot always refers to Captain Hastings as ‘mon ami’ or my friend in French. Nonetheless, a reference at the end of the book might have made it convenient for the readers to connect with the French phrases better.

5. Conclusion:

I would like to apologise in advance if my lines do not match with the expectations of avid detective novel readers. This is my first novel book and thus I do not have any baseline to compare it with.

In the end, I realise that the book was worthwhile to read. Now I have a few handy short stories which I recite in any event. From the perspective of avid novel readers, you will find it as a great resource to take a break from the long reading season. Agatha Christie is a renowned writer and I am looking forward to reading her books.

6. About the book material:

The dimension of the book: 20 cm * 10 cm.
The book was easy on hands. Although I had picked the book which was published way earlier, the quality of the book was still considerable. The pages were all intact and the book felt light while holding.

7. Information:

• Publication: Harper Collins UK
• Year of Publication: 1923 (Original)
• Number of pages: 153
• Number of Chapters: 11
• Cost of the book: ₹ 299 (Paperback-2017 edition)
• Overall rating: 3.5/5