Read by Hugh Fraser the actor who portrays Captain Hastings in the TV series.
This book features the recurring characters of Hercule Poirot, Colonel Race, Superintendent Battle and the bumbling crime writer Ariadne Oliver, making her first appearance in a Poirot novel. The four detectives and four possible suspects play bridge after dinner with Mr Shaitana. At the end of the evening, Mr Shaitana is discovered murdered. Identifying the murderer, per Mrs Christie, depends wholly on discerning the psychology of the suspects.
This novel was well received at first printing and in later reviews. It was noted for its humour, for the subtlety of the writing, good clueing and tight writing, showing continuing improvement in the author's writing style in this, her twentieth novel. One later reviewer considered this in the top rung of her novels, and another found it to be most original, with a brilliant surprise ending.
Reviewer:
Wmnoffaith1
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May 31, 2020
Subject:
Quite a good mystery!
I've decided to break the long standing tradition amongst these reviewers, and actually comment on the book itself! Although this isn't one of my favorite Christie books, it has an ingenious plot which I don't recall ever having run across before; so I'll award it stars just for originality.
The victim collects, instead of murder implements, the murderers themselves! Unfortunately, his hobby is short-lived ( no pun intended) and one of the members of his collection decide to use his invitation to a dinner party to murder him.
After dinner, the host groups the eight guests into two bridge foursomes, while he sits out. One bridge table is comprised of four of the "murderers" in his collection , while the other foursome includes Msr. Poirot, Superintendent Battle, Col. Race, and Mrs. Oliver. The host is therefore murdered almost under the very noses of four crime professionals whose job it becomes to solve the crime, and determine the perpetrator.
There are a few distortions in the recording but not enough to take away from the enjoyment of the book; and certainly not enough to continually post reviews on these audiobooks ( as Mr. Aardvark constantly does) without mentioning a single word about the plot, characters, or writing. I find it frustrating that reviews of audiobooks today only address the perfection of the recording, as if the story you'll invest six hours listening to is irrelevant. Maybe for some people it is. Maybe it truly makes no difference to them at all whether the story is interesting or well written, as long as the sound quality is perfect.
For those, like myself, who listen to a story because we want to hear an interesting story, I recommend this one. It's unique.
Reviewer:
Armpit time for Aardvarks
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May 12, 2019
Subject:
Some sound anomalies in stream.
I'm really grateful to have these available to listen to.
Fraser is quite good, but I feel his female voices can be indistinct.
Having said that, there are a few anomalies in the stream at least, (tried 2 different browsers and it occurs in both).
At
1:13:50 onwards there is a clicking and some stuttering for a short time.
The further I listen there is overlapping speech, and some skipping. Not sure how much is missing. Doesn't seem to be much, but it is throughout the recording.
Can be distracting more than anything - not quite at the end yet, so hopefully it doesn't get worse.
