Monday, December 8, 2014

Curtain

Book: Curtain
Series: Poirot #38
Author: Agatha Christie

The house guests at Styles seemed perfectly pleasant to Captain Hastings; there was his own daughter Judith, an inoffensive ornithologist called Norton, dashing Mr Allerton, brittle Miss Cole, Doctor Franklin and his fragile wife Barbara , Nurse Craven, Colonel Luttrell and his charming wife, Daisy, and the charismatic Boyd-Carrington. So Hastings was shocked to learn from Hercule Poirot's declaration that one of them was a five-times murderer. True, the ageing detective was crippled with arthritis, but had his deductive instincts finally deserted him?

The novel features Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings in their final appearances in Christie's works. It is a country house novel, with all the characters and the murder set in one house. Not only does the novel return the characters to the setting of her first, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, but it reunites Poirot and Hastings, who last appeared together in Dumb Witness in 1937. It was adapted for television in 2013.-Goodreads

Review:  It's only fitting that Poirot's last case with Hastings is at Styles, where it all began. This book had almost everything I love in a Poirot mystery-Poirot is borderline obnoxious about how smart he is, Hastings is lovably clueless and I found myself taking notes as I read. It was quite sad seeing Poirot as a crippled old man but I loved how the story unfolded at the end. I'm sure many readers were upset with how it ended. I'll avoid spoilers but I will say Poirot said throughout the series that everyone is capable of murder given the right circumstances. My only complaint with this book was the murderer. While the individual was definitely creepy and there was a strong psychological aspect to the crime, he was kind of 'blah.' 

Grade: 4/5

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