Murder in Three Acts (original 1934; edition 1961)

Il ne fait pas bon, ces derniers temps, être invité aux dîners de Sir Charles. À quelques jours d'intervalle, un pasteur, puis un psychiatre en sortent les pieds devant. Le mobile insolite de ce double crime, il faudrait avoir été invité à dîner pour le découvrir. Et quand cet invité s'appelle Hercule Poirot…

The more I read Agatha Christie's mysteries the more I like them. It seems like with every new volume there's an extra something that makes them more than just an engaging riddle. Either I'm reading the books with a more pronounced human element or I'm just noticing it more and somehow I'm inclined to think that it is the latter.
I really liked Mr. Satterthwaite, the intelligent little man with an absolutely unpronounceable name and a way with people. The Lytton Gore ladies were my "human element" here introducing the subject of being able to see people for who they really are and not in the way Poirot does it. They made mistakes sometimes, sure, but their perceptions felt warm and uncalculating. I liked these characters more than the rest particularly because we learned more about them as people than we did about any of the others and that is really my only gripe - the rest of the cast are barely fleshed out and I wish we knew a little more about them.
Of course I didn't figure out who the culprit was even though I suspected everyone. It almost detracted from the story, this constant watchfulness, attentiveness to every word and trying to see in what way it could be a clue, whether it could be a clue. I really need to turn off that part of my brain next time and just enjoy the story. Learn from my mistakes, my friends! ( )

I remember feeling, when I first read this book many years ago, that there was something "off" about it. Something didn't quite work. When I reread it recently I was left with the same feeling. And it is one that it difficult to clearly articulate.





Warning, past here there be spoilers.



Perhaps the clearest way of explaining it is to say that I think that this would be a far better play than a novel. On stage the things that, in my opinion, worked against it might actually work for it. (Not to mention the wonderfully meta quality of staging a play about a murder that was basically staged and rehearsed much like a play.



Since he has no Hastings to function as Watson to his Holmes Poirot is forced to discuss the murders in the book with a number of different characters who cannot successfully fill in for the missing Hastings. Poirot does not have the type of relationship with any of these characters that would justify his opening up to (or, for that matter, misleading) them. In order to "play fair" with the reader Christie must provide a limited view into the minds of the various subsidiary characters whose POVs advance the plot since to do otherwise would have immediately given away "whodunnit."



The characters seem to be rather vaguely "realized" functioning more as types than as individual people and I felt uninvested in any of them on first reading or on rereading. Their failure to come off the page was particularly noticeable in the latter chapters of the book when I often felt that whenever one character, particularly Poirot, was speaking the other characters froze into immobility or faded from the scene. This is especially true in the dramatic "all is revealed" scene when I was as a reader distracted by the lack of distracting responses from the other people in the room.



In short, what would have been an enjoyable play presented instead as a serviceable book. ( )

Continuing on in my summer Agatha Christie challenge, I come to Three Act Tragedy. This is my first Hercule Poirot book and I was a little disappointed. I thought he would figure more prominently in the book but after dismissing the first death as accidentally in the beginning of the book we don't hear much more from him until the end. He does not hold the same appeal Miss Marple does for me, at least in this book. I will see if I like him any better as I read other books featuring him this summer. The central mystery at the heart of this novel was not that engaging for me. There were a lot of characters to keep track of in the beginning and that was somewhat confusing, although that did get easier as the novel went on. Like in the previous AC mystery I reviewed, the solution was presented in the final pages. I had rather liked the murderer so that was disappointing although Eggs did seem to get her happy ever after. I am off to view the Masterpiece Classic film of Three Act tragedy. Perhaps when I view it on film, I will like it better. If this had been the first AC I read I might have given up on the challenge. I will see if Endless Night is more to my liking. ( )

A very solid Christie work. The murders in this book are rather diabolical, and the first victim in particular is an odd choice because it seems as though nobody would want to kill a nice old man. The mystery is investigated by the usual plucky amateur detectives, although they do have assistance from Poirot (who of course solves the mystery). In an interesting variation, the two male amateur detectives are what I would call "grownups" -- i.e. people in middle age, while the female amateur detective is a bright young thing in her 20s named Hermione, but whom everyone calls "Egg". Greatest nickname ever. I was definitely not able to predict the outcome, but when Poirot explained everything it all made sense. Very cleverly done. ( )