MY THOUGHTS:
It seemed to be an open-and-shut case. Mrs McGinty was an ordinary cleaning lady who got murdered in her own home, apparently for her ￡30 savings. She was smashed brutally on the back of the head with a sharp object, and since there were no signs of breaking and entering, her young boarder, James Bentley, was arrested. What's more, his coat sleeve had an incriminating bloodstain and hair strand. Bentley now awaits execution with a defeatist attitude and his tail between his legs.
It's at this point when Superintendent Spence visits Hercule Poirot. Spence has a strong, niggling intuition that Bentley is innocent. It's reason enough for Poirot to head straight to the tiny town of Broadhinny, for if a man has not committed murder, he should not be hanged.
Leads there are thicker and more tangled than Poirot expects. Mrs McGinty had cut out an incriminating news clipping regarding some disappeared persons from decades ago. The big question is whether or not she'd identified any hidden faces among her cleaning clients and intended to come clean. More townsfolk seem to behave suspiciously than not, but is it all to do with the same crime? And is everyone who they claim to be?
Meanwhile, celebrated mystery novelist, Ariadne Oliver, has a major headache as she tries to collaborate with a young playwright named Robin Upward, who is adapting one of her stories for the stage. Upward tramples roughshod over everything, destroying all Mrs Oliver's personal headcanon with every step, even as he insists, 'I want you to be happy, darling.'
She appeals to Poirot, 'How would you like to see a big black moustache stuck onto Superintendent Battle and be told it was you?' The rub is, I find she's not exaggerating. So many film and TV adaptations of books I've come across have been precisely this gung-ho and insensitive. Ouch!
In another comic thread, Poirot suffers the martyrdom of scruffy hospitality, including dreadful cooking and slapdash sanitation, yet he has to suck it up because this guesthouse is the best Broadhinny has to offer.
This story made me smile. The crime's solution is satisfactorily dramatic, and then rather than hightailing it straight back to London, Poirot announces his intention to stick around for long enough to dabble in a bit of matchmaking between a couple of innocent characters.
Bravo!
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