PhoenixFalls - , reviewed on 9/21/2009 + 185 more book reviews

Reading this novel made me grateful that Christie never wrote the Poirot/Miss Marple novel her publisher asked her for. It is simply too difficult to combine lead detectives. In this case, Poirot is barely in the novel, and Mr. Satterthwaite is far less charming (and penetrating) than he is in his short stories. The addition of Sir Charles Cartwright as the one driving the detecting simply confuses the chemistry further.

All of the characters involved in the mystery are very thin, and because they are described from different POV detectives (Satterthwaite, Cartwright, or Egg Lytton Gore, but never Poirot) there is little consistency in the feel. The little bit of romance is unconvincing, again due to the constant changing of POV character, and the motive Poirot eventually reveals is one that Christie has denigrated in other novels.

So all in all, while it should be read by completists like me, I would not recommend this novel to anyone else.

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