Sparkling Cyanide; The Secret of Chimneys; Five Little Pigs
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Sparkling Cyanide
It was an odd sort of party, as birthday parties go. In many ways it was a repeat performance of the one a year ago. The same people, all a year older, were present - except one. Rosemary's place was set however, and the empty chair reminded the assembled guests of the tragic and inexplicable end of last year's party. For then, Rosemary's death by cyanide poisoning - suicide, it was called - had been witnessed by all of them. A toast was called, "for the sake of remembrance". Glasses were raised and they drank; and within a minute and a half one of the six lay dead. Murder? Or another suicide? Or was the first death, a year ago, suicide...?
It was an odd sort of party, as birthday parties go. In many ways it was a repeat performance of the one a year ago. The same people, all a year older, were present - except one. Rosemary's place was set however, and the empty chair reminded the assembled guests of the tragic and inexplicable end of last year's party. For then, Rosemary's death by cyanide poisoning - suicide, it was called - had been witnessed by all of them. A toast was called, "for the sake of remembrance". Glasses were raised and they drank; and within a minute and a half one of the six lay dead. Murder? Or another suicide? Or was the first death, a year ago, suicide...?
The Secret of Chimneys
Chimneys is an historic English country house, and seemingly a far cry from the strange world of international intrigue. But things are not always what they seem to be - and this, at least, is made quickly apparent in a thriller which displays Agatha Christie at her very best. There is, for example, the secret of the gold mine (that has nothing to do with mining) bequeathed by a 'dago' who turns out to be a Balkan European; and there is the King Victor who is anything but what his name suggets. The reader is plunged headlong into mystery from the start; when Anthony Cade, alias Gentleman Joe, is asked to assist in the transmission of a packet of memoirs between Paris and London via Bulawayo - a service for which the sum of £1,000 has been set aside.
Chimneys is an historic English country house, and seemingly a far cry from the strange world of international intrigue. But things are not always what they seem to be - and this, at least, is made quickly apparent in a thriller which displays Agatha Christie at her very best. There is, for example, the secret of the gold mine (that has nothing to do with mining) bequeathed by a 'dago' who turns out to be a Balkan European; and there is the King Victor who is anything but what his name suggets. The reader is plunged headlong into mystery from the start; when Anthony Cade, alias Gentleman Joe, is asked to assist in the transmission of a packet of memoirs between Paris and London via Bulawayo - a service for which the sum of £1,000 has been set aside.
Five Little Pigs
Peoples memories of events being what they are, a detective's task is not made more easy by coming on the scene late in the day - and the longer the delay the more the scent is apt to have cooled. After a lapse of sixteen years it is apt to be very cool indeed. Yet Poirot's strange commission is to investigate a murder case which was officially closed with the trial, conviction and sentence of the victim's widow. Just how he meets this challenge, unusual even in Poirot's experience, presented to him by the now grown-up daughter of the tragic marriage, makes this book one of Agatha Christie's most brilliant exercises and one of Hercule Poirot's most intriguing cases.
Peoples memories of events being what they are, a detective's task is not made more easy by coming on the scene late in the day - and the longer the delay the more the scent is apt to have cooled. After a lapse of sixteen years it is apt to be very cool indeed. Yet Poirot's strange commission is to investigate a murder case which was officially closed with the trial, conviction and sentence of the victim's widow. Just how he meets this challenge, unusual even in Poirot's experience, presented to him by the now grown-up daughter of the tragic marriage, makes this book one of Agatha Christie's most brilliant exercises and one of Hercule Poirot's most intriguing cases.
