One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

One morning, Hercule Poirot visits his dentist as a patient. That afternoon, he returns as a detective: Dr. Henry Morley has died in suspicious circumstances. On the surface it appears to be suicide, but was it in fact murder?

This is one of those slightly bananas Agatha Christies that have political shenanigans in them: spies, anti-Communists, subversive elements, shady businessmen who seem to be *really* controlling the world. It isn’t one of the better Poirots (and for people who are afraid of the dentist, the fact that a different patient dies shortly after visiting Poirot’s dentist is not reassuring). I derived my greatest enjoyment from remembering Christopher Eccleston’s turn as Frank Carter in the adaptation of this book show more for the David Suchet series. show less

This is definitely one of Christie's more entertaining mysteries. Poirot's dentist winds up dead shortly after the great detective's visit. This is followed by the death of a Greek aristocrat and an unidentified woman, all of whom visited the dentist that day. We add to this a whiff of communist conspiracy and a banking magnate whose life is in danger. Poirot has to chase down multiple murders and multiple unclear identities. I figured out the culprit, but not the how or the why. As the best mysteries do, this one kept me riveted, and had numerous twists and turns. One of Christie's best.

I really enjoyed this Hercule Poirot outing, which begins with Poirot going to the dentist. When later that day the dentist is found murdered, it sets off a chain of events that leaves Poirot with several deaths to investigate. This one is particularly fun as you can just imagine Agatha Christie going to a dentist's office and getting inspired. For the engaged reader, you can also sense WWII going on just off the page although Christie is by no means including current events in her book. A fun Poirot I'd recommend (although be prepared there is at least one point a character drops a racial slur).

She leaned forward. “I’m going to tell you things, M. Poirot. You’re not the kind one can just string along. I’d rather tell you than have you snooping around finding out.

Christie, Agatha. One, Two, Buckle my Shoe: A Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot series Book 22) (p. 68). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Hercule Poirot is glad when his six month dentist appointment is over, but he's back there later that day when he finds out his dentist was shot dead and the police think it might have been an accident and the target was actually Mr Alistair Blunt - head of a bank and a man of vast influence and wealth.

This was an enjoyable read. The mystery was good and I loved how all the characters were busy hating on the dentist. It show more amused me that Poirot was so sad before his appointment, wishful during (he hoped the dentist doesn't notice his clearly decaying tooth) and elated afterwards. The ending was a surprise - as per usual - but it was fun to follow the path the investigation takes. I really did think Alistair Blunt's niece was involved.

I was happy that my two favourite characters - Inspector Japp and George the Valet both make appearances. And of course, they both gave some of my favourite lines;

When Poirot reached home, George said: “Chief Inspector Japp is here, sir.”
Japp grinned in a rueful way as Poirot came into the room. “Here I am, old boy. Come round to say: ‘Aren’t you a marvel? How do you do it? What makes you think of these things?’”
“All this meaning—? But pardon, you will have some refreshment? A sirop? Or perhaps the whisky?” “The whisky is good enough for me.”
A few minutes later he raised his glass, observing: “Here’s to Hercule Poirot who is always right!” “No, no, mon ami.”
“Here we had a lovely case of suicide. H.P. says it’s murder—wants it to be murder—and dash it all, it is murder!”
“Ah? So you agree at last?”
“Well, nobody can say I’m pigheaded. I don’t fly in the face of evidence. The trouble was there wasn’t any evidence before.”
“But there is now?”
“Yes, and I’ve come round to make the amend honourable, as you call it, and present the titbit to you on toast, as it were.”
“I am all agog, my good Japp.”

Christie, Agatha. One, Two, Buckle my Shoe: A Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot series Book 22) (pp. 125-126). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.



He looked encouragingly at George. “Now, my good Georges, what have you to say about the matter?”
George pondered. He said: “It strikes me, sir—”
“Yes, Georges?”
“You will have to find another dentist to attend to your teeth in future, sir.”
Hercule Poirot said: “You surpass yourself, Georges. That aspect of the matter had not as yet occurred to me!”
Looking gratified, George left the room.

Christie, Agatha. One, Two, Buckle my Shoe: A Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot series Book 22) (p. 63). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

A fun read, enjoyable read, 3.5 stars, rounded to 4 stars. show less

I have mixed feelings about 'One, Two, Buckle My Shoe'. It has a lot of strengths but when it was over, I felt slightly distant from the outcome.

I'm sure this is an Agatha Christie book that many of her readers will thoroughly enjoy.

The plot is very clever. It has more than one unexpected twist. The exposition is skilfully done, with the evidence being presented calmly over a period of some months and with each piece of the puzzle adding to the possible solutions to the death of a dentist but shedding little light on the inner workings of Poirot's mind.

Hastings' absence from this mystery added some things that I liked: Poirot's interactions with Jaffe took on a more peer-to-peer character that seemed appropriate and made the show more exposition easier and more credible and Poirot didn't seem as smug as he sometimes does, perhaps because he had no Hastings to patronise.

I liked the ending. The Poirot-explains-it-all scene was relatively low-key and served to do more than flourish the solution to the puzzle like a stage magician at the finale of his best trick. This time, Poirot's explanation also served to place him on the horns of a dilemma. Given his actions in previous books, I was surprised and pleased by the decision he made.

So why aren't I placing 'One, Two, Buckle My Shoe' up with 'The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd' as one of Christie's best books?

Mostly it is because it felt too mechanical to me. The plot was elaborate but clever and just about plausible but the storytelling had all the emotional depth of a science thought experiment. Most of us are more interested in the cleverness of Schroedinger's box than whether or not his cat lived. The use of the nursery rhyme verses to structure the chapters was clever but added to the emotional distance of the book. The characterisation of the people in the book, especially the young men, was paper-thin or trope-heavy if you prefer. They were well enough described to serve their purpose as plot devices - a distraction here, an annoyance there - but, with two exceptions, there was no one in the book that I cared about.

It's the two exceptions that kept me engaged with the book. The first is Mr Morely, the dentist who dies. He is not an important, exotic or charismatic man. He's an ordinary man who is a competent dentist. He appears only briefly before his demise and yet Christie managed to make him a real. A man whose sister loved him and whose staff respected him. A man prone to irritability and tied to habit. A man who worried about his secretary having a relationship with someone he judges to be untrustworthy. A man with a life that should not have been taken from him. The second exception is Poirot. For once, I saw Poirot as more than a slightly vain outsider with a compulsion to solve puzzles. This time I saw him as a man affronted by the death of someone he knew, albeit only in a professional capacity and who was determined that that death should not go unpunished.

I recommend the audiobook version, narrated by Hugh Fraser. I think his performance this time was particularly strong. show less

Like many people, Hercule Poirot dreaded his appointment with his dentist. “There was in his heart a ridiculous hope that Mr. Morley might have been called away, might be indisposed, might not be seeing patients to-day...All in vain.” Poirot's dentist kept his appointment – one of his last, as it turned out. His body was discovered later that afternoon with the pistol with which it was presumed he took his own life. Poirot wasn't satisfied with the coroner's verdict of suicide, especially when the bodies of first one, then another of the dentist's last patients are discovered. Why was the dentist murdered, and who wanted him dead? Is there another intended victim?

The dental office setting is a fun twist on the English country show more house murder. The suspects are patients, colleagues, and employees rather than the usual family members, guests, and servants. The counting rhyme of the title is a plot device. Each line of the rhyme is connected in some way to the action in that chapter. Christie doesn't often refer to Poirot's earlier cases so it was fun when a couple of them popped up in this book. Finally, there was a surprise twist at the end of the story that not even Poirot foresaw! show less

I thoroughly enjoyed One Two Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie. The author used her little grey cells in this whodunit to fit each chapter into the next line of the nursery rhyme and delivered a coherent and tantalizing mystery. This is Hercule Poirot at his most secretive as he pieces the clues together and never lets us lowly reader into his thought processes. I don’t even try to solve these mysteries, I simply turn the pages and absorb the old-fashioned British atmosphere, the quaint characters and in this case, the slightly over-the-top mystery.

This cryptic mystery starts with Hercule Poirot visiting his dentist, a dentist that is all too soon to be found dead. The suspects are limited, but motive is almost non-existent so this show more murder gets filed away as a suicide, but that verdict does not sit well with M. Poirot and he keeps puzzling away until he has found the answer.

I always look forward to reading an Agatha Christie, and this one really hit the spot for me. Lots of red herrings, a few strange twists and the oh-so-superior Hercule Poirot made One Two Buckle My Shoe a very good read for me. show less