The Big Four

Like most of Christie's political suspense mysteries, The Big Four falls flat. The string of coincidences and lucky breaks would shame even Dickens, while the tricks and twists are so contrived that they're almost laughable. At one point Poirot and Hastings are captured and the criminal mastermind asks Poirot if he has any last requests. He asks to smoke a cigarette, which their captor places in Poirot's mouth. What do you know — the cigarette is actually a blowgun tipped with curare, allowing them to escape. And that's just one of the many impossibly silly moments in this story. Oy.

The only redeeming feature of this novel is the humor. Poirot, as described by his friend Hastings, is quite funny. So is Hastings' own lack of self show more perception. Another comic bit comes in with the revelation that Poirot has a twin brother, Achille Poirot. "Do you not know that all celebrated detectives have brothers who would be even more celebrated than they are were it not for constitutional indolence?" Poirot asks the astonished Hastings. Hehe.

I'm a Christie fan and enjoy most of her work, but I can't warm up to her efforts at international conspiracy stuff. Give me her country house, cozy mysteries any day — that's where she earns her reputation as one of the best-loved authors in the mystery genre. show less

Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings, just arrived from Argentina, are on the trail of a group composed of four criminal masterminds bent on world domination.

This is a very strange book, which reads more like an early thriller than a traditional mystery, and just like The Man in the Brown Suit, published in 1924, it has not aged well. From the outset there is eye-rolling melodrama, hair-raising coincidences, atrocious accents, ludicrous disguises, mysterious science, preposterous props (a tiny arrow tipped in curare inside a cigarette!) and exotic criminals. It would almost read like a deliberate farce if it didn't take itself so seriously, and we encounter some rather crude racial stereotyping, casual racism and Chinese characters show more speaking only broken pidgin English; I flinched more than once.

Instead of a smooth linear narrative the book follows a series of almost self-contained tableaux that contain their own mysteries as the intrepid duo follow leads from location to location (Poirot at one point likens himself to a 'human foxhound') but invariably come too late. Unlike in Christie's later and more accomplished novels, readers are told about the clues, not shown them carefully hidden inside the exposition or dialogue, and so there is no chance for the reader to track down the perpetrator alongside (or ahead of) the detective, which is half the fun.

The one detail that stood out for me was the fact that the murderer in one of the mysteries drove up in a butcher's cart and was carrying a leg of mutton, thereby going completely unnoticed by the village residents, a plot device Agatha Christie used in Death in the Clouds.

I find it curious that so many of Christie's early (and decidedly mediocre) novels appear to revolve around espionage/a criminal mastermind, and I wonder how much of that decision was due to pressure from the publisher, because they thought that's what the reading public wanted, and how much her own plotting.

One for completists only. show less

If you ever have the misfortune of reading this book you can at least rest assured that no matter which Hercule Poirot story you read from here on, it will be significantly better than the Big Four.

Published in the late 1920s, the Big Four revolves around a shadowy cabal asserting control over academia, finance and world politics in an attempt to bring down western civilization and achieve world domination. If you know anything about the political climate of the 20s and 30s this premise may ring a few alarm bells but don't worry; it's not the Jews -it's the Chinese (which in a sense makes it ahead of its time I guess).

The remarkably racist premise aside, the novel forsakes the traditional Hercule Poirot format of moderately intricate show more detective fiction in favor of a series of slapstick spy thriller vignettes -each with a twist so banal a 5-year old would be insulted by it. The story has less in common with the classical detective genre than with some sort of James Bond protofiction. The best thing you can say about the reading experience is that it occasionally reaches so bad it's good-quality, but for the most part it's a complete waste of time. show less

Digital audiobook narrated by Hugh Fraser
1*

Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings are on the trail of an evil syndicate trying to take over the world.

That sounds like a James Bond novel synopsis more than a murder mystery featuring the famous Belgian detective and his “little grey cells,” and that is the crux of the problem. Originally these were short stories and Christie tried to weave them together into an espionage thriller, but without much success.

The action takes place over several years. There are multiple attempts on Poirot’s and/or Hastings’s lives. I never really knew what this syndicate was after (other than world domination) or why. Most of the scenarios seemed incredibly far-fetched and unrealistic. And worse, show more they were under-developed.

One thing that DID capture my attention (however briefly) was mention of Hastings’s wife. What? He’s married? I don’t recall any other mention of his beloved in any of the other books I’ve read, nor in the TV miniseries. And he’s always on about “auburn-haired” women and mooning over them in the other books..

Skip this one and concentrate on the traditional mysteries.

Hugh Fraser does a respectable job of narrating the audiobook. I like David Suchet’s interpretation of Poirot better, but that isn’t Fraser’s fault. show less

The Big Four is quite the departure for Hercule Poirot books - a little more James Bond in flavor than we've come to expect from an Agatha Christie novel. Instead of one contained mystery, this is a series of mysteries linked by a secret cabal that is running the world.

Purportedly, this format is due to Christie having reworked a series of short stories into a larger narrative to publish them as a novel. The new structure of having a new small mystery every few chapters is a nice change of pace. I don't think an entire series like this would be great, but I enjoyed it as a one off.

Hastings continues to be very dense and aggravating, but it was more tolerable when there was a new mystery for him to fail to have any insight into show more regularly. Overall a fun read. show less

Agatha Christie was a masterful plotter of detective novels, but her thrillers (see her Tommy and Tuppence books, for example) are naive and not very good. While her detective novels feel like atemporal, this feels dated.

Here, Poirot fights a ridiculous super-criminal organization (think Moriarty, only an alliance of four such people instead of just one). The book is at its best when it reads as independent detective short stories, where Poirot investigates and the solution turns out to be related to the Big Four organization. When the Big Four are in the foreground, it is not good.

Hastings, of course, is as dim-witted as ever... This one is only for Agatha Christie completists.

This early Poirot novel is pulp fiction and not really a whodunnit. Poirot and Hastings go on the hunt for the members of the Big Four, a criminal syndicate led by a Chinese man who is the master planner, an American industrialist who provides the wealth, a French woman who provides scientific know how, and a mysterious number 4, the Destroyer, who seems to be able to adopt almost any disguise at will. This syndicate is supposed to be behind every riot, labour unrest and political upheaval across the world, including the Russian revolution, and even behind some natural disasters using the French woman's expertise, aiming at world domination and the collapse of civilisation. Yes, four master criminals with thousands of agents supposedly show more in every country at their disposal. This is so ridiculous I could scarcely suspend my disbelief at points, but I guess was kind of enjoyable hokum.

One contemporary review, in The Scotsman of 17 March 1927 sums it up perfectly for me: "The activities of Poirot himself cannot be taken seriously, as one takes, for example, Sherlock Holmes. The book, indeed, reads more like an exaggerated parody of popular detective fiction than a serious essay in the type. But it certainly provides plenty of fun for the reader who is prepared to be amused. If that was the intention of the authoress, she has succeeded to perfection". show less