Agatha (Christie) All Along: Part Three: Poirot's Later Years
The final adventures of Le Moustache
This is part three of my four-part series reflecting on that time I read 62 Agatha Christie novels (“that time” being “calendar year 2024”). Here is part one about Miss Marple, and part two about Poirot pt 1.
Having ascertained last time that Agatha Christie was tired of Poirot by approximately the end of 1938, things get more interesting vis-a-vis how much of Le Moustache actually appears in some of these books.
Premise: This one has big Poirot energy. It starts off with him at the dentist’s office, where guess what: someone is murdered but also he’s having a dental appointment. I will always remember which one this is among all of Agatha’s novels-named-after-nursery-rhymes because the major clue is, in fact, a shoe buckle.
Poirot level: High
Premise: In which Poirot attempts to go on holiday, this time to Devon, and again his plans are disrupted by a murder he can’t help but solve.
Poirot level: High
Premise: Poirot is invited to re-investigate a now-cold case about the murder of an artist sixteen years ago. It all takes place at a remote country estate, filled with suspicious people: my fav.
Poirot level: High
Note: Agatha successfully went four years without having to write a Poirot book, which she clearly enjoyed. But the public, and her publisher, demanded more of the little grey cells! And so she brought him back again.
Premise: A classic Knives Out type scenario with a bunch of suspicious people all together in a manor house and a murder happens. Poirot arrives VERY late in the book, almost like Agatha didn’t want him there at all, but had to put him in. Here’s the thing though: I am always going to like a story about a bunch of suspicious people together in a house with a murderer, so I liked this one.
Poirot level: Low
Premise: Poirot’s pal, author Ariadne Oliver (author of murder mysteries, who has come to detest the sleuth-character her publisher forces her to keep writing about) makes a major appearance here. Poirot (and Oliver) go to a small English village to double-check that a man found guilty of murder, and on death row, was actually guilty.
Poirot level: High
Premise: Poirot is invited to investigate a series of petty thefts happening in a hostel where mostly college students are living. This is one where you can feel Agatha (who was born in 1890) trying to make her youthful characters act as she thought that 20-year-olds were acting in 1955. She is not very successful, particularly with the Egyptian and West African characters.
Poirot level: Medium
Premise: The book takes place at a girl’s school, where mysterious happenings are about and (inevitably) a murder occurs. Poirot shows up incredibly late to proceedings, quickly solves the murder, and peaces out. But I’m always a fan of murder mysteries set in girl’s schools and that makes this one of my favourites. One of Poirot’s particularly unhinged clues is the way that adult women’s knees look different from teenage girls’ knees: do they really?
Poirot level: Low
Premise: Agatha Christie attempts to write about swinging 1966 London 20somethings and is not entirely unsuccessful. “Third girl” in the title refers to the way that young people sought roommates; two roommates needing a third girl to split the rent with. It’s a situation that wouldn’t have occurred in the 1920s or 1930s and feels specifically 1960s, which makes it interesting that the PBS Masterpiece Poirot series re-set it in the 1930s. Poirot partly solves the mystery because it’s just too weird for one woman to own so many wigs; I would say, in 1966, it was probably actually quite normal for various kinds of women to own various amounts of wigs.
Poirot level: High
Premise: This was ostensibly the basis for the 2024 Kenneth Branagh film A Murder in Venice, but it’s truly nothing like that apart from a few names. The premise of this book is that Poirot and his pal Ariadne Oliver (who still hates the sleuth-character that her publisher is making her write about) attend a Halloween party where a girl dies in an apple-bobbing incident. Turns out, it’s much more complicated than that! Hypothesis: Agatha was only able to stomach writing more Poirot books by including Ariadne Oliver there as an Agatha Christie stand-in, complaining about how much she hates writing about her famous sleuth character.
Poirot level: Medium
Premise: This was the final Poirot novel written by Agatha Christie. This time Ariadne Oliver is approached to investigate a cold case, and she brings Poirot along with her. The plot twists in this one delighted me, but they are a bit more telenovela/ 1980s General Hospital level than in most of Agatha’s books, so that may not be your thing.
Poirot level: Medium
Premise: Agatha Christie wrote this during World War II, when she thought she might die in a bombing and wanted to make sure the Poirot series had a good conclusion. This was not published until after Agatha’s death. You can tell it was written decades earlier because Ariadne Oliver isn’t it, and Poirot’s former assistant Hastings is suddenly there. This is a strong conclusion to the series, with Poirot seemingly old and infirm but as smart as ever… but is he really old and infirm? And if he’s not, why would he pretend to be?? And to my delight, it all takes place at a country house full of suspicious people.
Poirot level: High
Other Poirot books from time time period which I did not enjoy as much: Sad Cypress (1940), Taken at the Flood (1948), After the Funeral (1953), Dead Man’s Folly (1956), The Clocks (1963).
Next time: revisiting all of Agatha’s non-Poirot, non-Marple novels! Tommy and Tuppance, I’m coming for you.
I personally don't think Tommy & Tuppence get nearly enough love in the Christieverse, so I'll be interested to hear what you think of the five books that feature them. Would you also consider reading the six books Christie wrote as Mary Westmacott? They are VERY different from her mysteries.