Summary: Who wouldn't be pleased to attend a small dinner party being held by Sir Charles Cartwright, once the leading star of the London stage? At his "Crow's Nest" home in Loomouth, Cornwall.
Unfortunately, thirteen guests arrived at the actor's house, most unlucky. One of them was a vicar. It was to be a particularly unlucky evening for the mild-mannered Reverend Stephen Babbington, who choked on his cocktail, went into convulsions and died. But when his martini glass was sent for chemical analysis, there was no trace of poison -- just as Hercule Poirot, also in attendance, had predicted. Even more troubling for the great detective, there was absolutely no motive!
MY THOUGHTS:
Sir Charles Cartwright, the famous retired actor, is having a party when one of his guests, Reverend Stephen Babbington, dies suddenly after sipping a cocktail. A short time later, celebrated nerve specialist, Sir Bartholomew Strange, dies drinking port at a gathering of his own. Alarmingly, some of the guests were present at both functions. And in both instances, the verdict turns out to be poisoning by means of a highly concentrated dose of pure nicotine.
Sir Charles convinces two friends to help him figure it out. Mr Satterthwaite is an elderly patron of the arts. Miss Hermione Lytton Gore (nicknamed Egg!) is a star-struck girl who's fallen heavily for Sir Charles. Together, this unlikely trio takes on an extremely puzzling mystery.
Who would want either of the two lovely gentlemen dead; community pillars as they both were? How could they possibly be connected, if at all? Luckily a fourth truth-seeker pops up, who was present at the first murder, and whose interest has been piqued. It's our old friend Hercule Poirot. The professional detective understands that the amateur trio think they're onto it, so he graciously offers to stand back and not be a party pooper. Poirot will let Sir Charles have the glory of unraveling the crimes even if he has to spoon feed very broad clues.
Okay, first for the nitpicking. To start with, there's something a bit tasteless about making any sort of a game out of murder, don't you think? Secondly, Sir Charles is way, way too old for Egg, even in an era when young girls idolized older men. And thirdly, getting used to her strange nickname takes a bit of effort at the outset. (I noticed a couple of other reviewers claim that was too big a stumbling block for them altogether, but I wouldn't go that far. A young woman has a right to call herself Egg if she wants to.)
Now the minor grumbles are out of the way, the solution is so audacious and ingenious. There was no way I could have possibly figured this one out, although several clues were laid before us. The red herrings are fantastic and the cast of suspects is varied, interesting, and seemingly motiveless across the board. There is a nice little lover's triangle, low-key as it is. And Poirot shines at his very best, and even offers a valid reason to Mr Satterthwaite for his continual boasting. He claims that making himself a deliberate target of people's gentle ridicule helps put them off guard regarding him. Hmmm.
Other than all that, I wonder if Egg's defense of the Christian faith mirrors Christie's own.
'I really believe in Christianity, not like Mother does - with little books and early service and things - but intelligently and as a matter of history. The Church is all clotted up with the Pauline tradition, in fact the Church is a mess, but Christianity itself is alright... The Babbingtons really were Christians; they didn't poke and pry and condemn, and they were never unkind about people or things.'
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