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When a mock murder game staged for charity threatens to turn into the real thing, the intrepid Hercule Poirot is called in to take part in this Dead Man's Folly, a classic from the queen of suspense, Agatha Christie.
Sir George and Lady Stubbs, the hosts of a village fete, hit upon the novel idea of staging a mock murder mystery. In good faith, Ariadne Oliver, the well-known crime writer, agrees to organize their murder hunt.
Despite weeks of meticulous planning, at the last minute Ariadne calls her friend Hercule Poirot for his expert assistance. Instinctively, she senses that's something sinister is about to happen....
Porua: Dead Man's Folly is another book in the series of books that features Hercule Poirot with his friend Mrs. Ariadne Oliver. Cards on the Table is the book in which Poirot meets Mrs. Oliver for the first time and what an eventful meeting that turns out to be! Anyone who enjoys the friendship Poirot and Mrs. Oliver share must read Cards on the Table to know how this endearing and long lasting alliance started.… (more)
Mystery novelist Ariadne Oliver summons Hercule Poirot to a country estate in Nassecomb, owned by Sir George and Lady Stubbs, where she is organizing a charity “murder hunt” because her gut tells her that a real murder will take place. Although Poirot is annoyed and reluctant at first, he intervenes, but the “pretend” murder victim, a teenage girl, is nevertheless actually killed, a woman disappears, and an old man dies. Despite all the clues, Poirot is baffled until he assembles the clues in the right way. Slow start but then the momentum picks up and the motive was a complete surprise to me. ( )
Dead Man’s Folly brings a story of death and mayhem. Poirot goes to Devon to aid a mystery writer in her Murder Game when the unexpected happens and a young girl is murdered. So many twists and turns in this delightful novel. Again, like a Shakespeare story, two characters pose as someone else. An old man knows the false identity and tells his granddaughter, Marlene. Someone murders Marlene during the Murder Game, and of course, no one understands why. As usual, Agatha Christie employs her usual characters: a rich man and his younger and beautiful wife, the faithful secretary in love with her boss, and a young couple having problems. Poirot, a romantic at heart, aids the couple in patching their relationship. The English countryside and the lovely gardens enhance the story. Yes, Christie’s book follow a certain script, but the journey always brings pleasure. ( )
Detective novelist Ariadne Oliver is in Devon organizing a murder hunt for a fête at her host’s estate. Mrs. Oliver senses that something is very wrong, so she summons her old friend, Hercule Poirot, to get to the bottom of things. Mrs. Oliver’s host and the other guests believe that Poirot is there to present the prize to the winner of the murder hunt. The perceptive Mrs. Oliver’s fear is realized when a real body turns up where the corpse is supposed to be.
Mrs. Oliver is one of my favorite supporting characters in the Poirot novels. This is at least the third time I’ve read or listened to this novel, so I remembered some of the clues but not the whole solution. It’s a clever plot, and Christie makes good use of her red herrings. ( )
It was Miss Lemon, Poirot's efficient secretary, who took the telephone call.
Quotations
"I can't help you," said Mrs Oliver. "I can't imagine who could have done it. At least, of course, I can imagine - I can imagine anything! That's the trouble with me. I can imagine things now - this minute. I could even make them sound all right, but of course none of them would be true. I mean, she could have been murdered by someone who just likes murdering girls but that's too easy - and, anyway, too much of a coincidence that somebody should be at this fete who wanted to murder a girl. And how would he know that Marlene was in the boathouse? Or she might have known some secret about somebody's love affairs, or she may have recognised somebody who was concealing his identity - or she may have known a secret about where some treasure was buried during the war. Or the man in the launch may have thrown somebody into the river and she saw it from the window of the boathouse - or she may even have got hold of some very important message in secret code and not known what it was herself."
Last words
There are some things that one has to face quite alone. . . ."
In 1954, Agatha Christie wrote the novella Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly with the intention of donating the proceeds to a fund set up to buy stained glass windows for her local church at Churston Ferrers, and she filled the story with references to local places, including her own home of Greenway. But having completed it, she decided instead to expand the story into a full-length novel, Dead Man’s Folly, which was published two years later, and donated a Miss Marple story (Greenshaw’s Folly) to the church fund instead. PLEASE DO NOT COMBINE!
Since the characters are chiefly the same, I have noted the character's name in the novella when it is different. If a character has only a surname in one version, and both a first name and surname in the other, I have used the full name in both works.
When a mock murder game staged for charity threatens to turn into the real thing, the intrepid Hercule Poirot is called in to take part in this Dead Man's Folly, a classic from the queen of suspense, Agatha Christie.
Sir George and Lady Stubbs, the hosts of a village fete, hit upon the novel idea of staging a mock murder mystery. In good faith, Ariadne Oliver, the well-known crime writer, agrees to organize their murder hunt.
Despite weeks of meticulous planning, at the last minute Ariadne calls her friend Hercule Poirot for his expert assistance. Instinctively, she senses that's something sinister is about to happen....
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A young girl is dead. Hercule Poirot asks questions. Where is Lady Stubbs? (passion4reading)
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